


At Eternity's Gate

by johnandsherlocks



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Art, Artists, Eventual Smut, First Meetings, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Painting, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:01:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 47,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9466538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnandsherlocks/pseuds/johnandsherlocks
Summary: Sherlock Holmes is an artist who has lost all his inspiration.John Watson used to be a recognized artist who got bored and decided to turn his whole life around. It didn't work.They're both broken. And there's nothing left to their lives but white canvas.Until the day they meet. And life shapes itself around the contours and traces and colors.Artists! AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born out of a [beautiful headcanon](http://johnandsherlocks.tumblr.com/post/152126508042/au-where-theyre-both-artists-in-london-and) an anon sent me four months ago on tumblr. This is all dedicated to you, lovely anon! x
> 
> The title is based on a painting by Vincent Van Gogh. 
> 
> Warning: English is not my first language, so you may find some typos or grammatical mistakes, those are entirely my fault.
> 
> This fic will be updated weekly. Any feedback is appreciated :3

The first time Sherlock saw a painting he was 4 years old. The National Gallery of British Art was too big and he felt too small, lost amidst the labyrinth of passages, portraits and landscapes. He remembered it clearly, the steady presence of his mother by his side, holding his hand and smiling tightly. She loved this, he could tell.  
   
They stopped in front of a painting that captivated him. He stared at it through the curls of his forehead, and his sight fixed onto the eyes of the man holding the air pump with the bird. The man seemed to be staring at him. "What's that?", he asked, his eyes fixed on what was in front of him, as if some kind of spell had befallen over him.  
   
"That", she said pointing to the brightest part of the painting, "is light". Her fingers moved through the air as if she could touch the painting by doing it so, "and that is darkness."  
   
_Light and darkness. What an unusual combination,_ Sherlock thought.  
   
He would come to learn later that only great artists found the balance between light and darkness.  
   
***  
   
_Yellow._ That was the first thing that came into John's mind as he looked around. Why was there so much yellow?  
   
"Vincent's favourite colour was yellow. To him, it represented happiness", the tour guide said behind him.  
   
Looking for happiness in the middle of sadness. Now that was a real artist.  
   
John smiled as he leaned closer and stared at the heavy brushstrokes of the painting, and he could almost picture Van Gogh painting them as he poured every single thought of his mind and every single emotion of his soul into the light of the stars. They were yellow. Strokes in spiral, strokes with shape, strokes with lines, strokes that looked so full of painting, they were able to bring life to the picture.  
   
_“I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”_  
  
Dream indeed.    
   
Yellow was the colour of Van Gogh's stars. Yellow was also the colour of life. Or so John told himself.  
   
That day John Watson decided he wanted to be an artist.  
   
***  
   
At some point, Sherlock could have defined his life as a Chiaroscuro.  
   
But now, standing in the middle of an empty flat, a flat as lifeless as he felt, the only 'Chiaro' he had left was the hideous white of the walls, standing as empty canvas, reminding him of the life that was and the life that is.  
   
He couldn't bring himself to paint them. What was the point?  
   
He couldn't find the motivation anymore.  
   
In those moments, the image of the bird inside the air pump came to his mind. The bird was surrounded by darkness, and locked without a place to go.  
   
Sometimes he felt like the bird in the air pump. All the times. Most of the times.  
   
Except he was surrounded by light. Trapped by it. He stared through the window.  
   
"A small thank you wouldn't go amiss", Mycroft said behind him.  
   
Sherlock snorted. "Thank you? For what?"  
   
Mycroft raised an eyebrow, his face drawing into a snarl. "You know what for, Sherlock."  
   
Of course Sherlock knew what for. He knew he was supposed to be thankful, too. But how was he to be thankful for being locked into a room, forced to eat and drink and talk to psychologists and not being able to take drugs? They had taken the inspiration, the motivation, the _light_ out of his life.  
   
So no, he couldn't be thankful. Ordinary people would be, but he wasn't ordinary.  
   
"Right, yes. _Thank you_ for telling our father, for forcing me to go to rehab and for taking the only good thing I had left out of my life."  
   
Mycroft's face was hatefully expressionless. He didn't look amused nor surprised, he simply stared at Sherlock. "It speaks volumes that the only good thing you had left in your life was the thing that would end it."  
   
_Probably a better option than this._ Sherlock thought, but didn't dare to say.  
  
"Are you done?", Sherlock said, walking towards the door and opening it.  
   
"I suppose I won't have to warn you about the consequences if you relapse."  
   
"You've made the consequences quite clear, brother dear", Sherlock said with a fake smile. He turned to look at the violin that was in his armchair. He would like to play but the inspiration wasn’t there anymore, the inspiration had been replaced by a shallow void that Sherlock didn’t know how to fill anymore. There was nothing left.  
   
The frailty of the artist: white is darkness.  
   
White were the canvas white was his mind white was his violin.  
   
Mycroft rolled his eyes and walked away without saying anything else.  
   
Sherlock slumped himself on the couch, feeling exhausted. There had been a time in his life when the living room had been surrounded by works in progress, drawings of people and bodies and faces and lights and shadows, but now there was nothing but the furnitures.  
   
And white walls.  
   
***  
   
War left scars. And not just physical scars.  
   
John had come to realise of that.  
   
_It's been three months, four days and thirteen hours since I came back._ He thought. _Three months, four days and thirteen hours and I haven't grabbed a pencil yet._  
  
He didn't have the courage anymore. Every time he sat to try and draw something the images of sand and dust and powder and blood and death stared at him, and he didn't know how to express them. He was no Picasso, he couldn't turn his pain into a Guernica.  
   
He simply sat, looking at the horizon, trying to find beauty amidst the horrors of war, that still haunted him like a ghost, that chased him even in his dreams, that turned beauty into pain. That shot that pain all through his body and concentrated on the wound of his shoulder and the limp of his leg.  
   
War had taken away the only good thing left in his life. No matter what he did, something always sent him back to Afghanistan.  
   
_How can I even begin to express the inexpressible?_  
  
John had enjoyed of a relative success when his career was just starting. He was one of his Academy's finest, managed to sell five of his artworks and even managed to sneak his favorite piece into the collection of the Tate Modern Gallery. He was introduced to the most selective circle of London's elite, became friends with some of those young self-called postmodern iconoclasts that were neither of those, just spoiled teenagers with money, and even took them to bed. It was everything he aspired to be and never thought he would get.  
   
But one day he got bored.  
   
One day he realized he had no clue what to make a painting of, there was not a single idea in his mind, the colors had lost their vibrancy and the existence felt somehow heavier, as some kind of burden.  
   
He hated the person he had become and the art that had made him famous. Now he only saw stripes and dots and stupidity and colors that didn't match and he asked himself how he had ever chosen this life in the first place.  
   
So he joined the army, looking for something to bring the color back to his life.  
   
That had been a mistake, for sure.  
   
Now everything was black.  
  
He turned to look to the drawer of his bedside table, not for the first time.  
   
The gun was in there. A constant, powerful reminder of the frailty of life, and its finitude. A finitude that even he could control.  
   
Another day went by without him grabbing a pencil. Add it to the counter.  
   
***  
   
_The eyes are asymmetrical. The coloring is poor. The mouth seems as if it was put into a snarl. Pathetic._  
  
Sherlock stared at it, then gave up and tore the paper into pieces as he yelled with rage.  
   
It was hateful, horrible. The worst thing he had ever done and he couldn't believe he was the author of such a terrible drawing. A hasty drawing from a six-year-old would be a Vermeer compared to this drawing.  
   
What was wrong with him?  
   
He licked his lip as an impulse. He couldn't help himself, the temptation was too big. He could simply walk out that door, two or three blocks to the east of shops and flats and grey dull buildings and finally he would get what he was craving for. Simple.  
   
_Scratch that._  
  
Not for now. He couldn't go back to that hellhole called Rehab and he knew that his brother wouldn't fail his word. Too much was at stake and it wasn't worth it.  
   
He stood there, in the middle of the flat, staring at those white, horrible walls, his breathing was ragged and all he could see around were the tiny pieces of broken paper that had been a terrible drawing a minute ago, he looked at them as they fell and landed into the wooden floor.  
   
_Stagnation._  
  
That was the only word that came to his mind.  
   
He grabbed his keys and walked out the flat, heading west.  
   
***  
   
The National Gallery of British Art was no longer called like that, it was called the Tate Gallery. Sherlock liked the other name better, brought images of memories he had carefully stored in his mind palace, images he never wanted to forget.  
   
But this wasn't the same National Gallery he had visited with his mother all those years ago. So he kept walking, ignoring the raging nostalgia he felt building in his stomach.  
   
He had always hated modern art. He didn't know why, he simply couldn't get it. He saw no magic behind a can of tomato soup, or behind a urinal. He couldn't understand how that was supposed to be labelled in the same category as what Caravaggio did.  
   
That was art. Tomato soup wasn't.  
   
But that day, he walked into the Tate Modern. Perhaps in a fit of absolute rage, needing something to focus his anger on, surely criticizing every work of art he saw in there would make him feel better.  
   
He walked over the huge cracks on the floor, right in the middle of the gallery. They were mended, but the scars were still there. He looked down and wondered how on earth a crack on the floor could ever be considered a work of art.  
   
He kept walking. Walking over the scar of something that was broken and had never managed to quite heal itself.  
   
Relatable.  
   
He felt as cold and hollow as the Tate Modern should have been before being turned into a museum. He saw nothing, he understood nothing, and he felt disgusted by the profession he had desired to follow. The golden age of art was gone, and now there was nothing but the remnants of it, mixed with junk, and that was modern art. But-  
   
He stopped walking.  
   
A huge painting was staring at him, almost two meters tall. Sherlock looked at it, unable to understand why he felt so drawn to it. There was nothing in the painting. Well, not nothing, there was an awkward landscape in tones of red and orange, not quite yellow, and black circles scattered all around it, as if they were shadows mingling with the landscape. The mixture of colors was somehow unsettling, simple yet complex, and Sherlock quirked an eyebrow at it, not quite understanding it, but understanding it all the same.  
   
He felt something when he looked at it. It was as if the painting was trying to imitate happiness, and finding nothing but sorrow on the wake of it, it was a desperate attempt to show something, to stop being a shadow, but being a shadow anyway.  
   
Sherlock felt that painting was him. In the midst between life and death, joy and sorrow, love and pain.  
   
And it didn't make sense at all.  
   
This painting had nothing on it, no defined forms, no chiaroscuro, nothing, just a mix of colors and shadows standing in the way.  
   
Yet, Sherlock saw everything it wasn't saying directly.  
   
It was saying it without saying it.  
   
Fascinating.  
   
The corners of his mouth twitched in a small smile. This painting existed physically, but its meaning went beyond the physical, its meaning was mental, meant to affect every single person in their own subjectivity, in their own appreciation of it.  
   
This painting was a challenge. A mental puzzle.  
   
Sherlock loved mental puzzles.  
   
He turned to look at the info of the artwork.  
  
_Anguish._  
  
_London, 2005._  
  
_Oil over canvas._  
  
_John Watson._  
   
John Watson.  
   
The name sounded familiar. Perhaps whispered in the artists’ circles, in the most exclusive, selective places he'd been in. He'd surely heard his name before.  
   
Sherlock stared at the painting for another while, detailing the heavy brushstrokes surrounding the landscape, as if they were a statement, as if this John Watson needed to scream something he couldn't say aloud.  
   
Anguish indeed.  
   
He stored in his mind palace every single detail about the painting, the place of each and every circle, the moment when red turned into orange, and orange into yellow but not quite. He stored the brushstrokes, the thin frame surrounding it. It still smelled a bit, and Sherlock felt a deep desire to touch it, to understand it, to feel the paint below his fingertips.  
   
He couldn't of course, so he tried to imagine the feel of it, rough yet tender, soft yet strong.  
   
Rough yet tender. Soft yet strong.  
   
Sherlock was struck with a deep, profound desire to draw, then and there. His hands itched, just like his lips had done before, but this wasn't about the impulse of taking drugs, no. This was about the impulse of merging himself with the graphite, of carefully drawing each line, each curve, of turning the white into color, into red, into orange. Into yellow.  
   
He walked out of the Tate Modern, stepping over the crack on the floor. He rushed towards Baker Street.  
   
***  
   
“Tell me about your morning.”  
   
_How do you explain the nothing and put it into words?_  
   
He cleared his throat. “I woke up.”  
   
“And?”  
   
“That’s it.”  
   
“Have you painted anything?”  
   
_Yes. I’m opening a Gallery at the Tate Modern tomorrow. Please. Look at my hands. Do you see the stains of graphite? Are there traces of yellow in my hair? Are my clothes clean? Then why do you ask me the obvious? You know I haven’t, yet you want to force me to say it._  
  
“No.”  
   
“Why?”  
   
“I have nothing to paint.”  
   
“Anything can be painted.”  
   
“No, not anything, no. I can’t paint the face of that soldier when he threw his last breath as a bullet graced him through the heart. I can try, but it’ll never convey all the pain behind it. It’ll never convey the death behind it. Life imitates art and so I can’t express death through art.”  
   
“Death is part of life.”  
   
“Really? Then why does it feel as if it were completely separate from it?”  
   
“You talk as if you’ve lived it.”  
   
John scoffed. “Living the death. Funny phrasing. I guess I did. I still do. I feel dead.”  
   
He had given too much away. The therapist said nothing, only kept writing on her notebook.  
   
John sighed and closed his eyes. His hand was starting to tremble.  
   
The therapist noticed it too.  
“Ah”, she said, realization hitting her.  
   
“Don’t.”  
   
“That’s why.”  
   
“War took everything from me. Everything.”  
   
“No. You’re taking everything away from yourself. Look for it.”  
   
_How to look for something I’ll never find?_  
  
“I have nothing left.”  
   
***  
   
Sherlock tore the paper apart. _Wrong wrong wrong._  
   
The ideas were in his head, had been ever since he saw that painting at the Tate Modern, yet he couldn’t put the ideas on paper and he wanted to scream. How to picture the movement inside his own brain? It was spiraling around; his thoughts were painted in yellow and red and orange and he realized he felt the same anguish the painting claimed to be about.  
   
No matter what, he could never produce something as powerful as that painting. Everything he painted was so…real, so human, so squared, following the logics and the rules of neoclassicists that lived 300 years ago.  
   
He closed his eyes and remembered that portrait of the bird he had seen the day he decided to be an artist. Trapped inside a pump. How very telling. Sherlock looked through his window and felt just the same, looking at the rest of the universe from his own personal jail, unable to grasp it all, unable to understand it all.  
   
So many wonderments in the universe, so many colors, so many things to draw, to paint, to defy the imagination, and he just painted bodies.  
   
And he couldn’t even do that properly.  
   
He looked down and sighed in defeat. The painting came back to his mind.  
   
His phone beeped. New message.  
   
_Newport Street Gallery. Opening of my collection tomorrow at 8 p.m._  
_Mike Stamford._  
   
***  
  
John had promised Mike he’d go to the gallery. When he received the message, he knew there was no turning back. Mike had photographed him in his studio four years ago, just before everything went to hell, and that portrait would be featuring in his collection.  
   
He didn’t want to go.  
   
He didn’t want to see the picture.  
   
He didn’t want to remember those scarce days when he actually felt happy, happy with his work, happy with the fame, happy with who he was. Someone had said that something that happened just once might as well never have happened at all. Who was it? He couldn’t remember, he had read it somewhere. And John wondered whether he had been really and completely happy or if he just had imagined he was.  
   
He’d never know.  
   
A thing that happened just once might never had happened at all.  
   
And he knew he would never be happy again.  
   
He looked at himself in the mirror. War had left scars in every single sense, but as he stared at himself, with his suit and his hair tossed to the side, it seemed as if he had never changed, as if he had never left.  
   
On the inside, it felt as if the John Watson who he used to be was a completely different person from who he was now. It felt as if the John Watson who had had the world at his feet and a painting in the Tate Modern had been nothing but a character from a book, an extract of his imagination.  
   
He sighed. “Into battle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The painting Sherlock saw when he was a kid is An Experiment on A Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby. The painting does make part of the National Gallery in London!
> 
> The scar Sherlock walks over at the Tate Modern is "Shibboleth", an artwork by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo. The scar is still visible on the ground if you ever visit it ;) 
> 
> John took the "what happened once might had never happened at all" thing from The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. That passage is based on a German adage.
> 
> Vincent's favorite color was, in fact, yellow :)


	2. Chapter 2

As he stared at the photograph, John wished he could be Dorian Gray. He wished he could place all the burdens of his soul onto the picture and so he would remain being the same man he used to be before the war and look as if time and memories and death had never affected him.  
   
If he could, he knew how his portrait would look.  
   
It would look 20 years older, wearing a dark expression, filled with dismay, with pain, but most of all, with fright. It was only bound to get worse, it was only bound to look older and darker and grimier.  
   
If that photograph could reflect his soul, it wouldn’t look as it did.  
   
It looked quite well.  
   
He knew Mike was a fine photographer. They had gone to art school together and had been friends back then. Mike didn’t find success as fast as John did, but now he was starting to gain recognition. The collection was about the artists and their studios, and it wanted to show that, just as romance made people unromantic, it seemed like an artists’ studio made artists so unartistic. People were captivated by the gallery.  
   
John wished he could be. He couldn’t bring himself to. As he stared at his old studio he remembered everything he used to be and felt the weight of time crashing against him.  
   
In the picture, he wasn’t smiling, but he looked happy. His face was completely focused on what he was painting. That day he had chosen a palette of blues to mix them with green, and so Mike had chosen the same palette to print the photograph, so it looked mostly tinted with blue.  
   
Blue was always associated with feeling blue. Yet John’s face seemed to find the warmth amidst the cold. That was what John liked about the photograph. That was what he hated about the photograph.  
   
He knew that if Mike were to photograph him now, he wouldn’t be able to bring warmth into the picture, he would only bring a sense of death, a sense of stillness and quietness. John would impersonate the war.  
   
Paintings were scattered everywhere in the picture. Every single corner was filled with a different landscape, with a different figure, with a different state of mind. John wanted to laugh at what his own flat looked like now. If people walked into it, they wouldn’t recognize it, they wouldn’t believe that it once was the biggest library of John Watson’s paintings. His flat was as dead and as blue as John felt.  
   
He took a sip of wine from the glass he was holding and kept walking.  
   
******  
   
Sherlock had to admit that Mike’s picture of him was…good. Not perfect, but quite good. The picture portrayed Sherlock’s profile, as he sat and drew the silhouette of a naked man, which was also included in the image. Sherlock looked completely focused on it, as if with every trace he was capable of unveiling the secrets of the person he was drawing, as if with every brushstroke he was solving a mystery.  
   
Sherlock smiled, it seemed as if he had a naked model in front of him, but he really wasn’t painting anyone in particular. He didn’t need models for his paintings. He grew up reading Greek myths and marveling on the image of their gods, he knew exactly which were the perfect proportions for a man’s body, and so he spent his whole career trying to reproduce that perfection, trying to find it in his drawings. He never found it. Hadn’t found it yet. That was the problem with growing up reading Greek myths, it set unrealistic expectations of the world: the world wasn’t so interesting. The real world was…disappointing, boring, predictable.  
   
Sherlock got tired of the real world quite fast and tried to escape from it as much as he could, hence the drugs. The drugs gave him a sensation of freedom that he enjoyed, but it passed too fast and left nothing but a feeling of loneliness and sadness that Sherlock didn’t know how to deal with, so he took more drugs to forget. It was a full circle, a circle he felt he could never leave. Until he was forced to rehab. For the third time.  
   
He still felt the need to use them. What used to alleviate his boredom was drawing and now his lack of inspiration had only left him feeling more and more desperate for relief. It seemed almost unavoidable, until…until he saw John Watson’s painting and his inspiration was brought back to life.  
   
He kept walking amidst the gallery. _Boring,_ he said about the portrait of a man sitting on his back as he painted a landscape, _boring_ , he said about the portrait of a young girl painting a still life filled with flowers and so on. _Boring, boring, boring, ugly colors, boring, boring…_  
  
No. Not boring.  
   
He stopped in front of a blue photograph. The image depicted a man in a studio filled of drawings everywhere, who had his full attention on his next work of art. The whole atmosphere of the studio was fantastic, as if it was filled with a contained sadness, as if the drawings were capable of breaking with it, as if the drawings around, mixed with the man’s face, were capable of bringing life.  
   
He looked at the title of the portrait.  
   
 _John Watson._  
 _2006._  
   
His eyes widened. John Watson. So this was John Watson? That explained the…anguish and the shapes of the drawings scattered around his studio.  
   
Sherlock imagined he was…different. He imagined him older, crazier perhaps? He imagined him leading a tormented existence that he could only reproduce in his paintings. But no, this John Watson looked quite young, and he looked surprisingly happy, surprisingly calm.  
   
Intriguing.  
   
For once, the artist managed to be as enigmatic as the picture itself.  
   
He stared at the portrait, trying to unveil its mysteries.  
   
******  
   
“So…what do you think?”, Mike asked as he approached John, wearing a big smile on his face.  
   
John looked at him and smiled back, then his attention turned back to the picture he had been staring. “It’s wonderful. All of it. Excellent work you did, Mike.”  
   
Mike smiled and turned to look at the photograph John had focused his attention on. “Sherlock Holmes”, he said, “quite a character.”  
   
John looked at the portrait info.  
  
 _Sherlock Holmes._  
 _2009._  
  
“Sherlock Holmes? never heard of him”, he said turning to stare at the picture once again. He couldn’t explain why, but he felt drawn to it, as if there was some kind of magnetism in the artist’s face.  
   
“Yeah, I’d be surprised if you did, he’s a bit of a traditionalist, moves in different circles. Focuses only on human bodies. His paintings are famous amongst London’s elite, but not among us, to be honest.”  
   
John looked at the naked silhouette that the portrait depicted. “Yes, I can see that”, he smiled without wanting to. It looked like a wonderful drawing Sherlock was doing.  
   
Mike looked around, “he must be here, somewhere. Oh! Hi Kate! Thank you for coming!, keep enjoying the gallery mate”, he said, walking to meet the woman he’d just greeted.  
   
“Will do”, John told no one in particular. He nodded and took another sip of wine. He recognized almost all the people who had come to the gallery, but none of them seemed to recognize them. He’d seen them in parties or in cafés but it was as if John had been…erased from existence and from the world he used to know. He sighed and kept walking on. It was cold in here and his insecurities were reflecting on his trembling hand. He wanted to leave as soon as possible.  
   
On his way out he’d have to face his portrait again, and he was completely decided not to look at it, because he’d probably start thinking about how to make deals with the devil, but as he passed by it, he noticed someone staring fixedly at it, completely focused on the portrait. He stopped and frowned. He recognized that profile immediately. Just like Mike’s picture. _He must be here, somewhere,_ Mike had said.  
   
Sherlock Holmes looked…surprisingly better than he did in the portrait. John didn’t expect him to be that tall, or that elegant. He looked like a public-school boy rather than a real and proper artist. Well, that explained the ‘traditionalist’.  
   
Sherlock Holmes had his arms crossed and was leaning towards the portrait, looking at it closely. John looked at him, puzzled. What could possibly be so fascinating about his portrait?  
   
Now he was curious.  
   
“Erm…Hello”, he said as he approached Sherlock.  
   
Sherlock didn’t turn to look at him, he kept his eyes fixed on the painting in front of him. “You look different”, he replied.  
   
John cleared his throat. “Different?”  
   
“From the photograph”, Sherlock said, finally turning and fixing those eyes on John’s. John felt all the air leaving his lungs as soon as he saw Sherlock. He had been _wrong._ Mike’s portrait hadn’t even begun to make justice to Sherlock Holmes’ features. His face was fascinating, completely and absolutely fascinating. His curly hair fell over his forehead and those cheekbones...those cheekbones.  
   
John had learnt to recognize (and name) the different colors he’d seen along his career. He had a sharp eye for colors, and yet he couldn’t put a name on the color of Sherlock’s eyes.  
   
 _Celeste. No. Cerulean? Too dark. Persian green? Too green. Sky blue? Not quite. Magic mint? No. Tiffany blue? Maybe…no, definitely no. Turquoise? Not quite. Verdigris? Sea green? Teal? No. No. No._  
   
Sherlock examined him with his eyes, they stared at each other silently. Finally, John felt his voice returning to him and he aimed for a casual conversation. “That was four years ago, people change.”  
   
Sherlock narrowed his eyes, John couldn’t stop staring at them, they were so incredibly beautiful that John felt the need right there and then to take an empty canvas and start mixing different shades of cyan and green until he’d get something even remotely similar to the color that was staring at him. “People change indeed”, was all Sherlock replied. He turned again and stared at John’s portrait.  
   
John looked at him, puzzled. Then he shook his head and forced himself to keep talking, “I saw your portrait. You look different too _.”_  
   
“I was a different person”, Sherlock replied and it was true.  
   
“So was I”, John said.  
   
“Quite so. Afghanistan or Iraq?”  
   
John’s mouth opened involuntarily. He blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”  
   
“I said, Afghanistan or Iraq?”, Sherlock said sharply.  
   
“Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you know?”  
   
Sherlock simply stared at him but said nothing. He put his hands behind his back. “And I take it you haven’t painted anything ever since.”  
   
“What? How?”, he wasn’t able to finish any of those sentences, who did this man think he was? “who told you?”  
   
“Your hand told me”, Sherlock replied.  
   
Instinctively, John hid his left hand. “Oh.”  
   
“Psychosomatic.”  
   
“Really? Tell that to my hand, that seems unable to grab a pencil without throwing it to the ground immediately”, he had said too much.  
   
Sherlock didn’t reply. John cleared his throat. He wanted to leave. Immediately. On the other hand…he wanted to meet this man, get to know him. Why? He had absolutely no idea, he wished he could understand him.  
   
He looked down and looked up. Sherlock was still staring at them. “So, you paint human bodies?”  
   
“Well, it depends on what you define as _human_ bodies”, Sherlock replied, looking more at ease.  
   
“What? Are they dead or…?”  
   
Sherlock’s lips quirked in a small smile. “I wish. Now _that_ would be quite interesting.”  
   
John should have been alerted by that phrase. He wasn’t. He couldn’t help but burst into laughter. Sherlock joined him a second later, looking slightly puzzled at the fact he found it funny too.  
   
Sherlock frowned at John as he smiled. He looked at him as if he was some kind of unsolvable mystery, as if he didn’t know quite what to make out of him. John looked at him with the same kind of wonder. They stared at each other for a long while, both unable to tear their gaze apart.  
   
John finally looked down and cleared his throat. “Um- and have you painted anything interesting lately?”  
   
Sherlock scoffed. “Everything I paint is _interesting_ ”, he said, a little sharply.  
   
John looked slightly embarrassed. “Right, right.”  
   
Sherlock’s eyes fixed on John’s left hand, “your hand is not an excuse to stop painting.”  
   
John looked at his hand and clenched it. “It’s not easy.”  
   
“Yes, but that’s not the reason why you haven’t done it yet, not entirely.”  
   
“Excuse me?”  
   
Sherlock looked at him, “bags under your eyes, so you haven’t slept properly. Your suit has seen better times, so you haven’t bought clothes in a long time, you returned three months ago, yet you haven’t even bothered to buy them. You care about your appearance yet you can’t bring yourself to bother about getting a new haircut. Does a haircut remind you of your military times? You seem to be struggling with trauma, then. Is that the reason why you haven’t painted?”  
   
John’s mouth opened and closed in surprise. He dragged a deep breath. “That- was…amazing.”  
   
Sherlock’s eyes widened. “It was?”  
   
John smiled at him. “It was”. He thought he’d be angry, damn it, he _should_ be angry, Sherlock had just brought out all of his insecurities and splayed them right in the open air, and he had been sharp and slightly offensive, but John’s main thought wasn’t any of those, his main thought was _this man is absolutely brilliant. And also a bit crazy._  
  
Sherlock smiled back at him, his face pulling itself into that same expression it had made minutes ago, as if he wanted to read and comprehend something he didn’t quite understand.  
   
John tore his gaze apart, wondering how it was possible that he was starting to get addicted to those _cerulean celeste mint green blue sky verdigris_ eyes.  
   
“Um, well, it’s already late, so I should probably go.”  
   
Sherlock looked around, “yes, yes.”  
   
“So, it was nice meeting you, Mr. Holmes. Great portrait Mike did of you back there”, he said nonchalantly, offering his hand for Sherlock to shake it.  
   
Sherlock shook it. “Sherlock, please.”  
   
John held Sherlock’s hand, _cold, it’s so cold, why is it so cold? Soft, why is it so soft?_ And simply said, “Sherlock.”  
   
Sherlock nodded. “Likewise, John.”  
   
John nodded. “Good, good”, they were still holding hands. They stared at each other for a while. _Perhaps blue sky is the closest. No, because they’ve got a hint of green somewhere, the sky doesn’t._ _We’re still holding hands._  
  
He let go of their joined hands and looked away. He walked out with a military nod.  
   
“Where are you heading to?”, he heard a voice behind him.  
   
“Sorry, what?”, John said turning to find Sherlock, who closed his eyes as if silently scolding himself for saying too much.  
   
“I asked where were you heading to. Maybe we could share a cab.”  
   
John stood silent for a moment. “I- um, West London.”  
   
Sherlock nodded, a small smile in his face. “West London? I’m in Central London, so it’s on its way”, he said walking already to the doors.  
   
John stared at Sherlock’s back with a frown, “o-kay”. He had been planning on taking the tube because honestly he didn’t have too much money and he couldn’t afford spending it on cab rides. But he could make an exception. For Sherlock.  
   
He walked with Sherlock towards the door, they picked up their coats and walked outside, as soon as they did Sherlock raised an arm and a cab stopped immediately. How on earth did he do that?  
   
John climbed in wondering if he had lost his mind. He was taking a cab with a complete and total stranger who…surprisingly didn’t feel like a stranger at all.  
   
“How long have you painted for?”, John asked Sherlock when the silence became too much of a weight between them.  
   
“Ever since I remember, I always liked it”, Sherlock replied and then he turned his attention towards his phone.  
   
John couldn’t explain why, but he wanted to keep talking to Sherlock so he said out of nowhere, “really? I started at 12. We were on a school excursion and I saw a Van Gogh painting and I decided that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Perhaps not as good as his creations, but it was worth a try.”  
   
Sherlock frowned as he stared at his phone. He didn’t look particularly interested in the conversation but he didn’t look annoyed either. “Who?”  
   
John stared at him. “Who what?”  
   
“Whose painting did you see that made you want to be an artist?”  
   
“Van Gogh’s. Vincent.”  
   
Sherlock shook his head. “Never heard of him.”  
   
John’s jaw dropped open. “I’m sorry, what?”  
   
Sherlock raised an eyebrow, this time he did look slightly annoyed. “I said I’ve never heard of him.”  
   
“You’ve never heard of _Van Gogh?_ ”, he asked in amusement.  
   
“No.”  
   
“I- _what?_ How is that even possible? He’s the best painter of all times!”  
   
Sherlock finally turned to look at John. “He is?”  
   
“Of course he is! He is bloody fantastic! Was.”  
   
“Hm”, Sherlock said, turning to look at the window.  
   
“You seriously never heard of him?”, John asked, endlessly curious.  
   
“Nope.”  
   
“The _Starry Night?_ The _sunflowers? Almond Blossoms?_ ”  
   
Sherlock shrugged.  
   
John didn’t say anything but he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He cleared his throat. “Fine, who’s your favorite painter, then?”  
   
“Me”, Sherlock replied.  
   
John cracked in laughter as he stared at Sherlock who raised another annoyed, not-amused eyebrow at him. “Seriously.”  
   
“Seriously. I like my paintings. I paint what’s in my mind. What’s not to like about it?”  
   
John thought about it. Were nude men in Sherlock’s mind? He stopped himself from commenting on it, but it was an interesting fact.  
  
Sherlock remained oblivious as he stared out the window.  
   
“Okay, but do you have any artist who’s influenced you, somehow?”, John asked, smiling slightly at this impossible man.  
   
Sherlock’s face brightened somehow. “I like Jacques Louis David.”  
   
“Really?”, John said, slightly surprised.  
   
Sherlock looked at him. “Really. Why?”  
   
John shrugged. “Hm, a bit political, that’s all.”  
   
“I like his paintings, not the meaning behind them. I like the way he uses proportion and perspective.”  
   
“So you never focus on what they actually _intend_ to say?”, John said, feeling slightly disappointed.  
   
“Why would I? I simply look for perfection.”  
   
“Simple and perfection rarely go together.”  
   
“Is that what you think? Hm, I look for perfection in simplicity. That’s why I paint naked bodies.”  
   
 _Do you have a model?_ John wanted to ask. _Do you make love to him after drawing the shapes of his muscles, the curve of his body?_ He shook the thought away and stared at Sherlock. _You could also be a perfect model._  
   
“Right here, please”, Sherlock said, taking John out of his reverie. John blinked a couple of times in order to clear his mind out of all those…thoughts surrounding Sherlock. “Thank you for sharing the cab”, he said, handing John a couple of quids, which John absentmindedly took, as he took in the shape of Sherlock’s long fingers.  
   
He swallowed. “Yes, you’re welcome.”  
   
“Good evening, John”, Sherlock said, offering a small smile.  
   
John nodded. “Goodnight, Sherlock.”  
   
Sherlock closed the cab door and John stared at him until he vanished behind the door of his flat.  
   
John smiled slightly.  
   
 _Fascinating._  
  
Absolutely, completely fascinating.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock had…lost his inspiration. Once again.  
   
And it had been a month.  
   
A month in which he had been surprisingly productive. After meeting John, he felt a deep desire to draw and paint once again, which he blamed on the fact that he’d been talking about it with John.  
   
It wasn’t because of John, of course not. That wouldn’t make sense.  
   
He could also blame it on John’s painting. But no matter what, he couldn’t help relating the sudden change in his life to that broken, bruised artist who without even trying had managed to completely turn it around.  
   
Fascinating.  
   
He hadn’t seen John again since Mike’s gallery. Nor he intended to. Certainly not.  
   
Since that day, he had created five different paintings. He hadn’t reached perfection yet, but he was quite pleased with the result. No, that was a lie. He was never happy with the result, he always hated what he painted, but his technique had certainly gotten better since then and his mind was bursting with ideas.  
   
Until that particular day, 30 days later.  
   
Sherlock sat in front of a white canvas, holding the charcoal in his hand, mentally prepared to look for perfection, imagining the proportions, the curves, the shapes, the shadows, the balance of colors…  
   
And then, nothing.  
   
He couldn’t put them into paper. No matter how he tried, they were too abstract, as if they were dangling in the air, but too far from Sherlock’s reach. His head was roaming everywhere, but his hand couldn’t work it out, couldn’t make his mind speak.  
   
He sighed and stood still for a moment, simply staring at the black stain the charcoal was leaving in his fingers. He liked the feeling of it. He liked the idea of it, he liked that with simply the touch of his fingers he could fade out the trace he’d made, yet the shadow of the trace would remain there, permanently.  
   
Charcoal was fascinating in its own way.  
   
His mind was wandering once again, he was losing his grip on the shadows and proportions. He couldn’t allow that.  
   
Charcoal and white canvas. And he was slowly going back to the stagnation he had suddenly recovered from.  
   
And he hated that. But he didn’t know how to stop. He didn’t know how to redirect his hand, how to guide its traces, how to pull them back together.  
   
30 days ago, staring at a nonsensical, abstract and colorful painting had been what had brought him some kind of inspiration back. He didn’t understand how, but the complexity and the depth of it spoke volumes to Sherlock, volumes that the painting didn’t show by itself.  
   
And it had worked.  
   
And it seemed pointless and stupid and he knew it wouldn’t work, but he would give it a try once again.  
   
Even if it meant he’d have to walk into that hateful gallery once again -he didn’t care that John’s painting was there, he would never be able to like the Tate Modern-, he would do it, because it was preferable to the other option.  
   
Which was drugs.  
   
Sherlock stared at the little traces in his arms. Scars that remained visible, as a constant remembrance to what he used to do, who he used to be. He hated looking at them, mostly because they were always accompanied by a sense of self-loathing that he couldn’t put a name into, and that only was forgotten by taking more drugs.  
   
Disgusting. He hated who he was.  
   
And who he is is not much better.  
   
The Tate Modern didn’t sound like such a bad idea.  
   
***  
   
During the last month, John had debated whether he should go to Baker Street and visit Sherlock on an almost daily basis.  
   
He always reached the conclusion that no, he shouldn’t.  
   
But that didn’t mean that he didn’t _want_ to. And oh God he wanted to.  
   
But he knew next to nothing about that man, except for the fact he painted nudes and he lived at that place. And he wasn’t even certain of that, what if it was his boyfriend’s -girlfriend’s? - flat? What if he wasn’t living there anymore? What if he never even lived there at all and he was just attending a party, or a social encounter or whatever?  
   
So no, he wouldn’t make a fool out of himself.  
   
Still, he thought of Sherlock on a daily basis.  
   
Somehow, the day after their meeting John’s hand was working much better. Still trembling every once in a while, but John could control it at some extent, which motivated him to start drawing once again. He hadn’t grabbed a brush yet, but drawing was a start.  
   
The problem? He hated all the things he drew. And that _was_ a big problem.  
   
He had a great technique when it came to balancing the colors and mixing them, because it was the topic he had loved ever since he saw that Van Gogh painting all those years ago. He loved the theory of color and the psychology behind it and the way colors seemed able to speak by themselves when they were used properly.  
   
But he hated drawing figures, and that was what he had been focusing on practicing so far, because he really, really needed to practice them.  
   
Yet thirty days had passed, his tremors had returned, and he hadn’t improved his drawing technique, what he drew always seemed to be asymmetrical and it looked forced and weird, and he wasn’t as talented as the cubists, nor he had the ability to combine the colors with the shapes, as did the futurists.  
   
No. If he wanted to be like another artist -which he didn’t, but he had to set himself a goal-, he’d be like Salvador Dalí, with a masterful use of technique _and_ a great use of colors.  
   
John rubbed his forehead. He knew that if he tried to use a brush he would only end up depressed and disappointed in himself. Who knew? Perhaps all the knowledge he had in color had vanished from his hands when he first pulled a trigger in Afghanistan.  
   
He missed the way he used to reach with his fingertips and feel the brushstrokes as he smiled at his own artworks. He missed the way he used to take the paint in his hands and mix it with a completely different color and get something beautiful and intense. He missed the smell of the oil. He liked the way the oil merged with the canvas.  
   
He missed painting. But he didn’t know if he’d be able to do it anymore.  
   
A thing that happened once might have not ever happened at all.  
   
He grabbed his keys and walked towards the Tate Modern. It was one of his favorite places in the world, and he had to admit that seeing his painting might be able to help him…in some way. Or it might make it all worse, who knew, he’d find it out in a couple of minutes.  
   
Yet what had motivated him was not to go and see his own painting, it really wasn’t. When John thought about color, and the way those colors mixed together, he couldn’t help but think about one of his very favorite paintings, _Dance Hall Scene_ by Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, which was in the Tate Modern as well.  
   
It was a futuristic artwork, and John loved the way the shapes managed to express the motion and the need to go on and on and on and move faster that somehow came from the mix of colors and traces. It was incredible, the way stillness created movement.  
   
He needed a bit of inspiration, he might look for it on the only place which was actually able to bring him some peace.  
   
***  
   
_I can’t believe this. It’s only been 30 days and this tells me a completely different thing from what it did before. How is that even possible?_  
  
He didn’t know, but it was true. Somehow the anguish from the painting didn’t only mean one thing, but it represented a thousand different things for Sherlock, it represented the pressing need to reach perfection, the pain of never being able to do it, the reminder that perfection was not possible to achieve, and somewhere, in a small, dark place of his mind, it represented whatever John Watson meant.  
   
He now couldn’t help associating the painting with the painter. And he hated that.  
   
But he felt that if he could understand John Watson in some way, he’d be able to understand what that anguish represented for him and what he wanted to say when he painted it.  
   
Such a shame that he would never ever attempt any form of contact with him.  
   
He would have liked to have kept in touch with him.  
   
But that was not how he was, he had come to learn throughout time that he was better off alone and that he actually didn’t _need_ anybody. Friends and lovers…that was simply just an excuse, a way to place your self-loathing and turning it into someone else’s burden, and hide it with the ‘promise’ of love.  
   
Stupid, all of that was so stupid.  
   
So no, Sherlock had no friends, and he knew that even if he attempted to have one it would never work, caring for someone made one very sloppy and a lovesick and a fool. And he didn’t want that.  
   
Friends… lovers…idiotic inventions. Truly idiotic.  
   
“How is it possible that every time we meet you’re looking at something related to _me?_ ”, he heard a voice behind him.  
   
He jumped. He had been far too absorbed in his thoughts. He kept his back to John as he closed his eyes and sighed.  
   
He turned to find a John who stared at him with amusement. He looked… different somehow. It was too difficult for Sherlock to explain why he looked different, but he really did.  
   
John smiled as Sherlock turned to look at him, “hello”, he said.  
   
Sherlock stood still for a moment, speechless, feeling not only embarrassed but also at an absolute loss of words. “I- erm”  
   
John nodded, encouragingly, expectantly. “Hello, John”, Sherlock said, clearing his throat.  
   
“Why are you looking at that old thing?”, John said, pointing at the painting and being unable to hide his disgust.  
   
“You don’t like it”, Sherlock deduced.  
   
“I used to. Five years ago, now I don’t. I don’t even remember ever painting at all.”  
   
Sherlock frowned, “Why?”  
   
John looked down. “It means nothing to me, not anymore. I look at it and I see nothing, and I painted it. Now I look at it and I feel like it doesn’t deserve to be here, right next to all these wonderful paintings.”  
   
Sherlock flinched, looking around. “I don’t see any wonderful paintings in here”, he said with all honesty. _Except for yours,_ he wanted to say. He didn’t.  
   
John looked up and stared at him with the same kind of wonderment he had expressed when they talked in the cab. He rolled his eyes. “I had forgotten who I was talking to, Mr. Tradition.”  
   
Sherlock shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with tradition.”  
   
John shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with modernity.”  
   
Sherlock scoffed. “I could make a list”. John smiled at him.  
   
They stood still in a slightly uncomfortable silence. Sherlock didn’t want to look at John because he was probably blushing from embarrassment and John was looking at his own painting while doing a weird expression Sherlock couldn’t put a name to. Finally, John broke the silence. “You haven’t answered my question.”  
   
“Which question?”, Sherlock said, even though he already knew which it was and he didn’t want to answer it.  
   
John didn’t break his gaze from the painting, “why are you here? Looking at this ugly thing?”  
   
“I wouldn’t call it ugly, John. Lacking technique, certainly, but not ugly.”  
   
“Sherlock.”  
   
Sherlock sighed. _Don’t blush don’t blush don’t blush._ “Hm?”  
   
“You hate modernity, so why coming here in the first place?”  
   
“It does wonders to your ego to see worse artists than you. This place motivates me to keep doing what I do, because no matter what, it’ll always be better than this.”  
   
John raised an eyebrow, “so you are standing in front of my painting to feel better about the way _you_ paint?”  
   
_No. I’m standing in front of your painting because it was the only thing that inspired me to actually do something. It was the only thing that made me feel like art had a purpose once again, like life had a purpose once again. But it’s a double-edged sword, because I know that no matter what, I’ll never be able to produce something as brilliant as this. Nothing I do will ever speak to anyone the way this speaks to me. You reached perfection. I’m still looking for it but I’ll never find it._ “Obviously”.  
   
John _laughed._  
   
Sherlock stared at him with the same wonder John had looked at him minutes ago.  
   
“I can’t say that didn’t hurt”, John said while he laughed. “But you’re right, it makes one feel better about oneself to see the lousy work of others. Remind me again, in which museum are your paintings located?”, he said with a smug smile.  
   
Sherlock actually _laughed._ Impossible. “Idiot.”  
   
John smiled.  
   
They fell silent once again. Sherlock looked down with a smile still drawing in his face (which he wished would remain hidden) and John looked around. Realization hit him and he smiled wider. “You say you’re better than all of these, huh?”  
   
Sherlock rolled his eyes, “I _know_ I’m better than all of these”, he said with disdain, as if it was an offense in itself to be place in the same category with these artists.  
   
“No”, John said shaking his head. “No matter how good you are, you’ll never be better than Vincent Van Gogh.”  
   
Sherlock sighed. “Oh God when are you going to stop talking about that man?”  
   
John’s eyes shone. “Come”, he told Sherlock, and without further ado, he started walking.  
   
Sherlock stared at John’s retreating figure and it took him a couple of seconds before he actually registered what he had said and he started following him.  
   
John walked around the Tate Modern as if he owned it. For Sherlock it was nothing but a labyrinth of passages and grim lighting, but John knew exactly where he was going to, as if he had walked down the same path his whole life.  
   
Sherlock walked just behind him. John never turned, not once, to check if Sherlock was there, he knew he was.  
   
They stopped in front of a painting.  
   
John smiled and stared at it, beaming. “Behold… Van Gogh.”  
   
Sherlock looked at it.  
   
He…wasn’t amused.  
   
_Anguish_ was better than…  
   
_Farms Near Ouvers_  
_Vincent Van Gogh_  
_Oil paint on canvas_  
_1890_  
   
The painting depicted a couple of houses and some mountains in the back. That was it. Sherlock looked at it for a moment and then turned to look at John with a disappointed expression in his face. “Is that it?”  
   
John looked at the picture closely, with a smile. “Well, it’s unfinished.”  
   
“Oh, that’s a slight relief.”  
   
John looked at Sherlock for a moment. “You really don’t see it?”  
   
“See what?”, Sherlock said with a shrug. “I saw it all, all the…houses and the mountains…impressive”, he said sarcastically.  
   
John looked annoyed for a second before talking.  
   
“When Van Gogh arrived to Ouvers, he had just left the asylum.”  
   
_His eyes shine every time he mentions Van Gogh. He really loves him._  
  
“He was lonely, had been lonely his whole life, except for his brother Theo. He knew he was doomed to failure -or so he thought- but he just…kept on painting. He loved it that much.”  
   
_Look at that smile._  
  
“This painting is unfinished because he killed himself. Don’t you see it?”, he said, turning to look at Sherlock, waving his hands in the air.  
   
_He’s looking at me. Did he ask something? What did he say?_  
   
“Sherlock?”  
   
“No.”  
   
John sighed and leaned even closer towards the painting. “Look at the brushstrokes. No, seriously, look at them.”  
   
Sherlock walked towards the painting and looked at them.  
   
“You’re not looking at them.”  
   
“I am.”  
   
“You’re not. Look! The brushstrokes express more than the painting does. Look at the shapes, the spirals of the trees, look at the amount of oil painting he put into the brush, look at the strength of the strokes.”  
   
Sherlock had to admit that the brushstrokes were actually impressive. He never saw that kind of statements in classicists.  
   
“Van Gogh was slowly losing his strength, slowly losing his light, feeling lost and lonely and trying constantly to cope with depression. And he did _this._ He poured his energy and his soul and his last forces into those brushstrokes.”  
   
Sherlock could somehow imagine Van Gogh painting it.  
   
John walked closer to Sherlock, he spoke lowly, “look at the colors, so full of saturation, of green, of _life,_ he was dying, he was dying and he expressed life through his paintings. That’s just the most wonderful thing an artist could ever manage. That’s why he’s the biggest painter of all times.”  
   
Sherlock was hypnotized by John’s words, by John’s voice, by John’s closeness. He could feel John’s passion as he spoke, he could feel it radiating, permeating into himself. He had never seen it that way, he still thought the painting wasn’t good enough because it lacked technique and precision, but it was filled with the same passion of John’s voice, with the same kind of emotion. He smiled.  
   
“That’s Modern Art, Sherlock”, John whispered into his ear.  
   
Sherlock actually shivered as he felt John’s breath in his neck.  
   
He nodded absentmindedly.  
   
Fascinating.  
   
John walked away from him and stared at the painting over and over and over, in the same way Sherlock had stared at John’s painting. He wondered what went through John’s mind as he looked at it, did he feel somehow identified with Van Gogh? As if he was slowly losing his light and desperately needed to find it back? As if he was dying in life? Did he feel lonely, hopeless, desperate?  
   
He couldn’t possibly know, but oh god he _wanted_ to.  
   
“I started drawing again”, John said out of nowhere.  
   
Sherlock remembered their first conversation ever and how John’s hand trembled. It wasn’t trembling now.  
   
“I mean, just small sketches and things like that, but it feels good.”  
   
Sherlock nodded. “I’m glad.”  
   
“Somehow the inspiration has slowly returned.”  
   
“Good.”  
   
“But, well, the technique… is just, terrible”, John admitted, his eyes fixed on the painting, as if he was afraid of looking at Sherlock.  
   
Sherlock remained silent. In any other situation, he would have made some kind of remark. Not now, not when John was opening up to him.  
   
John finally turned to look at him. “I want to improve it.”  
   
Sherlock stared at him.  
   
“I want you to help me.”  
   
Sherlock gaped.  
   
“You- you have the technique, and the body you were painting in Mike’s photograph was fantastic, and I was wondering if you could teach me, just a little, how to be a better painter.”  
   
Sherlock didn’t reply.  
   
“I just- knowing about colors and ways of mixing them is not enough, not anymore. I want more. I want to be better and better and I think it’s not a simple coincidence we met again. I have to take the chance before it’s too late- please?”  
   
Sherlock remained silent and blinked at him repeatedly.  
   
John looked away and smiled sadly. “You don’t have to.”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
John looked at him and smiled happily. “Really?”  
   
“I’ve never taught anyone anything, but I could give it a try, as long as you don’t be insufferable and pretend to be an idiot”, Sherlock said with a small smile and a shrug.  
   
“I would never do such thing.”  
   
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”  
   
“So that’s a definite yes?”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“Good.”  
   
“Good.”  
   
John rubbed the back of his neck. “So- um, where can we meet?”  
   
Sherlock replied immediately. “My place would be fine. 221B Baker Street.”  
   
John nodded. “221B Baker Street.”  
   
“Tuesdays and Thursdays.”  
   
“Okay um- does 7 pm work for you?”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“Great. That’s great.”  
   
Was it? Sherlock was not so sure.


	4. Chapter 4

John had made one big mistake. A huge one. He knew they were meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays (good) but he had never asked Sherlock when the classes would start and so he was standing in front of 221B Baker Street, oscillating, hesitating, not knowing what to do.  
   
It was Tuesday and it was 7:02. But was it supposed to start on this Tuesday? Was he overthinking things? No of course he wasn't. He wasn't. He was not.   
   
To say that he was anxious would be an understatement. He had spent the last couple of days regretting the fact he had asked Sherlock to teach him over and over. He knew he had acted on impulse, and he usually liked acting on impulse (wasn’t that what artists did sometimes? Acting on impulse often led to masterpieces…or to total failures), but after Sherlock had agreed and after the excitement had died out, John realized he had made one big mistake.  
   
He wasn’t good enough. He knew that much.  
   
It was simple: people were good at some things, people were bad at some things. No matter how much they tried, that would never change. They could only become better at what they’re good at, but very very rarely they could become good at something they were bad for. As if it was innate, you were born and even before you took your first breath you were already good at maths or good at learning languages and that was it.  
   
John was good at mixing colors.  
   
John was bad at painting bodies.  
   
That was the truth.  
   
The other unavoidable truth: he would end up making a fool of himself. In front of the _brilliant thorough methodic neoclassicist_ Sherlock Holmes.  
   
So yes, sometimes impulses led to gigantic failures.  
   
This was one of them.  
   
Knock, knock.  
   
*******  
   
Perhaps John had changed his mind. Of course he would. Perhaps John realized of who Sherlock really was and decided that it wouldn’t be a great idea to learn from him. Perhaps John only saw all of this as a joke. Perhaps perhaps perhaps. Sherlock looked down at his clock impatiently. John had said he’d be there at 7, it was 7:02 already and John wasn’t coming. John was definitely not coming.  
   
All of this had been a mistake. Sherlock knew that from the very beginning, from the moment they met and he convinced himself of it when out of nowhere he asked John if they could share a cab. Stupid.  
   
And yet, Sherlock couldn’t regret any of it.  
   
Talking to John Watson was…different.  
   
People use to say that every person is a world, and Sherlock knew that at least in his case that completely applied. He _was_ a world, and his mind palace was a universe on its own.  
   
But he never saw the world in other people’s faces. He never saw the depth and complexity of their thoughts, never even got a simple glimpse of the possibility of _something_ in other people’s minds.  
   
He saw a constellation in John’s face.  
   
He had seen it ever since he stared at John’s painting for the very first time, but since then his brain would drown itself trying to come out with the variables and the possibilities hidden inside John Watson’s world.  
   
And he reached a conclusion: the possibilities were infinite.  
   
And so, his interest in John Watson was just as infinite.  
   
That was why Sherlock had agreed to teach John. One of Sherlock’s biggest flaws was his endless need for a _everything_ to hold onto. He wished he could just hold the whole universe in his hand, shut it tight and never let it go.  
   
It was only logical that he would wish to understand John, a completely different universe on its own.  
   
He knew it was dangerous, but he could never say no to a good riddle.  
   
So he had agreed, he had regretted it, he had been confused, he had been determined and now he was thinking it had been the biggest mistake of his life.  
   
It was at times like this when Sherlock was hit with the constant reminder that caring was _not_ an advantage. But since when had he started caring about John Watson? He didn’t care about him, of course not, he just found him interesting, that was all.  
   
And attractive.  
   
And smart.  
   
And fascinating.  
   
But that was all.  
   
Three minutes into seven and Sherlock really should have known it wouldn’t happen. He sat in his chair, leaned his head against the back and sighed. He was holding a pencil in his hand and felt the utter need to break it and rip the paper he-had-set-on-the-living-room-so-John-would-be-comfortable apart.  
   
And that was when the doorbell rang.  
   
Sherlock stood up so fast he felt dizzy when he reached the door to open it.  
   
*******  
   
John couldn’t help but smile at the sight of Sherlock Holmes.  
   
Sherlock was particular on his own. His curls, his lean, tall figure and even those suits he wore created such a huge contrast with the prototypical image of the artist that it made John wonder whether he should be a model instead.  
   
He looked just like the kind of people he wanted to paint.  
   
“Hi”, his brain managed to produce while John was bombarded with thoughts. He didn’t stop smiling.  
   
“Hello, John. Please come in”, Sherlock said turning his back to him and walking upstairs already.  
   
John stood still for a moment, just smiling, when he caught up on the fact that Sherlock was gone and so he blinked and followed him.  
   
They arrived to a place that looked nothing like the studio from the photograph.  
   
_The windows are bigger the walls are whiter there’s no color in here there’s too much light and yet there’s no life._  
  
There was no life. And that was a surprise, because John had expected Sherlock’s place to be as enigmatic as the artist himself was. But standing there, in the center of an empty living room which held a couple of sketches and nothing but a sofa and white walls and huge windows and too much light didn’t feel like stepping over an enigma at all.  
   
Sherlock had lost what he once had.  
   
John looked around, trying to conceal his disappointment. He smiled at Sherlock and nodded. In a corner of the living room there was the only thing that brought some king of presence into the flat: the painting of a body.  
   
It was the last thing John fixed his eyes to and he was speechless as soon as he did.  
   
He walked towards the painting in awe and stopped too close to it. It was absolutely incredible. The background of the picture was painted in black, but the shape of the body was perfect. The painting depicted nothing but a torso and the arms of a man, and the proportions were incredible. The shades and the lights mixed in the right place, bringing a completely new definition to the chiaroscuro that would make Caravaggio jealous. Sherlock had used oil painting so the texture of it brought some kind of reality and dimension and life into the picture. It was as if a naked torso was right in front of John. It was marvelous. Sherlock was an absolute genius.  
   
John’s smile faded.  
   
He would never be capable of achieving _that._ That kind of aesthetic pleasantness, that masterful use of the shapes and the shadows, and the dark and the bright and the perfect portrayal of something as imperfect as the human body. It was impossible.  
   
Sherlock stood still, not moving from the door. He cleared his throat. “It’s still a work in progress”, he said hesitantly and he sounded nervous? Anxious? Scared? Something in between?  
   
“It’s perfect”, was all John could say.  
   
Sherlock didn’t speak, didn’t move, and John would say he didn’t even breathe, for there was far too much stillness in the room. After a while, he walked towards John. “No, it isn’t.”  
   
“It is. It’s- it’s fantastic! Sherlock how can you-?”  
   
“Fantastic and perfect are completely different terms.”  
   
“Both apply.”  
   
“They don’t. Fantasy intends to imitate perfection, desperately looks for it, but it will only be that, an impression.”  
   
“Then it is perfect.”  
   
“No. It’s fantastic. That’s all it’ll ever be.”  
   
_What a load of bullshit,_ John thought to himself. _I don’t react like that in the face of fantasy. I react like this in the face of your paintings. In the face of you. In the face of perfection._  
  
He didn’t say it.  
   
He simply walked away and realized that Sherlock had already set up a paper and a tripod so John could start drawing.  
   
He walked towards it while Sherlock simply stared at his own painting.  
   
John coughed, loud enough to wake Sherlock up. Sherlock blinked and turned to look at him with a small twitch of his lips drawing on his face.  
   
“Shall we?”, John asked.  
   
Sherlock nodded and walked towards him.  
   
Then he seemed to have remembered something and walked away from the room. He came back a minute later, carrying a long mirror, which he placed right next to the tripod.  
   
“Stand up”, he told John.  
   
John looked at him with a confused expression and Sherlock rolled his eyes. John obeyed.  
   
“Stand in front of the mirror.”  
   
John (reluctantly) did.  
   
“Look at yourself.”  
   
He did.  
   
“What do you see?”, Sherlock asked.  
   
_I see a broken man that has lost all hope and is trying to hold onto the last remain of hope he has left, a remain he never thought he would find. I see a man who had it all and so lost it all, and yet, who in the end came to realize that after all he had nothing at all and never did. I see the ghost of an artist, but the spark is gone, and so is the color and so is the passion that used to hide beneath his irises. I see a man who took everything for granted, including life, and now keeps being reminded of the fatality and the finitude of it. I see a man who is haunted by the war and has every kind of scar to prove it. I see a man who lost it all. And yet, I see a man who somehow found you._  
  
He shrugged.  
   
“John”, Sherlock said, impatiently.  
   
John sighed. “I see a man who came back from the war and hasn’t picked up a brush ever since.”  
   
Sherlock frowned. “You’re not observing.”  
   
John’s eyes narrowed. “I see an artist that is barely there anymore.”  
   
Sherlock walked closer and approached John from behind. He was so close that his body appeared to be right next to him in the mirror. “You’re still not observing”, he whispered into John’s ear.  
   
_I see perfection._  
  
“What am I supposed to see?”  
   
Sherlock dragged a deep breath and placed his hands over John’s shoulders. “I see a broad back, squared shoulders, a straight and rigid posture. I see a face that’s twitching, I see a hand that’s slowly clenching and unclenching itself. I see a fast intake of breath when I hold your shoulders. I see a short height but not as short as people think. I see a body in which all fits in.”  
   
John felt as if he had just been stripped naked, and not in a pleasant way. He felt studied, observed and analyzed. He hated it.  
   
But Sherlock was right. If he wanted to draw a body, he couldn’t get all metaphysical and start enunciating whatever made the person who they were. He had to observe the composure of his body, the structure of it, the bags under the eyes, the wrinkles, the posture, the height, the weight.  
   
He had to take the ordinary and turn it into art.  
   
“See?”, Sherlock said, his hands still over John’s shoulders. “Before you even begin to grab a pencil, you have got to have the idea on your mind. Focus on what you want to sketch. Your forearms? Your torso? The scar in your shoulder?”  
   
John blinked and walked away from the mirror, looking down. The scar in his shoulder, as if he would want to draw a reminder of the part of him he despised the most, as if he could just let it all go, as if war had never meant anything, as if it turned out to be nothing but a one-dimensional, lousy sketch. No, that was not what he wanted his scar to mean.  
   
His hand clenched and unclenched.  
   
Sherlock noticed it.  
   
And he walked away, towards the kitchen, giving John some space.  
   
He came back some minutes later, and offered a cup of tea to John, who took it absentmindedly.  
   
John slumped himself on one of Sherlock’s chair and dragged a deep breath.  
   
“I’ve upset you”, Sherlock said when the silence became too heavy.  
   
John took a sip of tea. “Good deduction, yeah.”  
   
“Was it the mention of the scar on your shoulder?”  
   
John shrugged and kept drinking his tea in silence.  
   
Sherlock cleared his throat. “John, when you paint human bodies, that’s what you’re doing, painting _human_ bodies. Human beings have scars and wounds. That’s what makes them human.”  
   
“I don’t see a single scar on your painting.”  
   
“That’s because I don’t settle for painting reality. But you do. That’s why you asked me to teach you, didn’t you?”  
   
John shrugged.  
   
“Why does it have to be something negative? Why can’t you just simply accept the scar and see it as something that is just part of you?”  
   
“Because I don’t want it to be part of me, I- wait a second”, John’s brain finally pulled the strings together, “I never told you about my scar. How did you know?”  
   
Sherlock rolled his eyes, clearly not amused. “Really, John? I don’t just _know,_ I observed. It still pains you and it’s reflected on the trembling of your hand. You subconsciously fix your t-shirt constantly to make sure it’s covered even though it’s not necessary because it wouldn’t be visible. You just need the reassurance that it will remain hidden. You wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t _something_ hidden beneath. Something you want to keep from the rest of the world. You came back three months ago from the war. Hardly a difficult deduction.”  
   
John involuntarily smiled. “Brilliant.”  
   
Sherlock blinked. “Really?”  
   
John nodded. He still felt somehow exposed and stripped down but he was amazed by Sherlock’s brilliance and madness and by the easiness in which he expressed it all without caring about following social standards and patterns. He just said what he thought and that was it. Perhaps people should be more like him.  
   
Sherlock placed his empty cup of tea and stood up. “Alright then, let’s continue.”  
   
John nodded. His hand wasn’t trembling anymore.  
   
“I think of the body as some kind of musical composition”, Sherlock said, standing in front of the paper, “-that is to say, as the union of a hundred different factors that align themselves together in order to create a whole”, he made a long trace across the paper, “-when you think about it, they’re not that different”, another trace, “there’s the idea of creating something that takes shape”, another long trace right in the middle, followed by his fingertips, in order to fade the trace of the charcoal and creating a shadow, he was creating a torso. “But for it to take shape, you need exactly the right pitch”, he started creating shadows around the torso, “high and low, high and low, high and low”, he repeated as he slowly filled the paper with more traces he then faded with his fingertips, “high, like then the sun is shining at just the right place and illuminates one of the corners of your body”, he said as he pointed to the upper right side of the torso, which was still clear from traces and shadows, as if it was filled by light, “low, like when the sun is setting and that light slowly leaves your body and creates a shadow of yourself”, he said, focusing on darkening the whole left side.  
   
“You need a rhythm”, he continued, “that rhythm is determined by what you saw in the mirror, how to draw broad shoulders, a straight back? You follow a rhythm, you set the rhythm, you set the longitude of your traces, you follow along those traces and you have the contour, it all follows a pattern”, he said as he traced the shoulders of his torso, “you also need texture, see?” He said, pointing at the left side of the picture, that had been darkened in order to create the illusion of the chiaroscuro, “the darkness and the light are capable of creating that texture, you believe there’s another dimension because the light effects make you think there is.”  
   
“A melody”, he said, turning to look at John, who was enticed staring at Sherlock’s hand as it moved the charcoal over the paper, “is the succession of pitches. It’s the highs and the lows combined. It’s the union of the light and the darkness, of brightness and shadow. See how it’s taking shape, right here?”, he said as he slowly dragged his fingertip over one of the traces he’d made to highlight the muscles in the abdomen, “I merely did a trace, but it’s the fading, when it fades, you’re not showing, you’re suggesting, and that’s when the human body takes shape.”  
   
John nodded slowly.  
   
“The biceps, the abdomen, the nipples, the forearms, they’re all part of the whole. They are the melodies forming an entire composition. You go slowly, one by one, focusing on how the light would affect them and when you realize”, he said taking a step back, “you’ve got it.”  
   
John stared at the drawing in amusement. The torso was finished, and it was fantastic. Sherlock had done it in less than ten minutes and yet the accuracy of it was absolutely remarkable. Sherlock knew exactly which were the right traces, knew where to place the shadows, which places to keep bright and which to keep dark. It was as if Sherlock had memorized every single inch of the body, and as if he had carefully studied it and analyzed it in his own mind.  
   
But whose body?  
   
John shook the thought away. “That’s…Jesus, Sherlock that was amazing.”  
   
Sherlock blushed and smiled softly. John realized that he’d like to see Sherlock blushing more often.  
   
He shook that thought away too.  
   
“Thank you”, Sherlock whispered. They stared at each other in silence and John felt as if by being under Sherlock’s piercing stare, his face was being as decomposed and analyzed inch by inch as he had done with the human body he had just drawn.  
   
It became too much. The air around them felt heavy and unnecessary.  
   
John looked away and rubbed the back of his neck, “ehm, well, this has been- wonderful, really, but it’s getting late and I’ve got to go”, he said, feeling incredibly awkward.  
   
Sherlock blinked. “Right, right”, he said. “I just- I’ll leave you a homework”, he said, the smile drawing itself on his face.  
   
John returned the smile, “go on then, _professor._ ”  
   
“I want you to start drawing certain parts of the body: an arm or a leg or a hand if you’re feeling bold. Remember to imagine the light hitting on that part of the body and what side it would illuminate and which it would darken, and use the shadow as a way to create dimension”.  
   
John nodded. Sherlock was actually a wonderful teacher.  
   
“And we’ll take a look at them the next class.”  
   
John smiled widely, “I honestly thought you wouldn’t agree to another.”  
   
Sherlock frowned, “why wouldn’t I?”  
   
“Because you claim we’re all idiots, so what would be the point?”  
   
“I’m giving you the benefit of doubt”, Sherlock said, seriously.  
   
John laughed. “Thank you, Sherlock. You are- I mean, your work is- it’s, it’s impressive. It really is.”  
   
Sherlock smiled. “Thank you, John.”  
   
“I’m certainly learning from the best.”  
   
“The very, very best”, Sherlock replied petulantly.  
   
John laughed. “The very very best just placed behind Van Gogh.”  
   
“Yes well, we’ll see about that”, Sherlock said, winking at John.  
   
John felt himself blush and grabbed his coat, clearing his throat. “I- I’ll see you on Thursday, then.”  
   
“Can’t wait”, Sherlock said and closed his eyes, as he had done when he had asked John if he was going to take a cab, a month ago. He looked like he was scolding himself for saying too much.  
   
_Me neither,_ John didn’t say. Instead all he said was “goodbye” and he closed the door behind him before hearing Sherlock’s reply.


	5. Chapter 5

_Four brushstrokes in white and one brushstroke of yellow in the middle: a star. That’s how Vincent painted them. Perhaps if I added a bit more of light blue and mixed it next to the dark blue so it would create the effect of the star’s glow, it would- focus, John. You’re supposed to be drawing body parts, not imagining how you’d paint the stars if your hand stopped trembling._  
  
He blinked and stared at the closed pad laying on his desk. He was holding the pencil in his hand, which wasn’t trembling by now, but John couldn’t bring himself to trust in it anymore. He tried to focus on the silhouette of the body, but every time he tried, landscapes would draw themselves in his mind. Perhaps he should become a landscaper instead, try and paint what was in front of him and that’d be it.  
   
But if he chose to do it, then Sherlock couldn’t be his tutor.  
   
So no, landscaper was not an option at the moment.  
   
_Sherlock._  
   
The thought crept back into his mind, out of nowhere.  
   
John swallowed.  
   
Just after the class, John stood outside of the door to 221B and thought about how he could even begin to explain Sherlock Holmes, and he found he simply couldn’t do it. Sherlock was fantastic, he was so smart and such a perfectionist and such a real and compromised artist. Staring at him was like looking at a painting, and the way his hands moved with the charcoal and created such a brilliant magic, it truly was something John felt lucky for having the pleasure to witness.  
   
_Hands._  
  
_Lean, long fingers. Large palms. Larger than mine. Short nails. Darkened with charcoal. Soft, tender, yet strong hands. A musician’s hands. Hands that were capable of composing melodies on their own, focus John! Remember what Sherlock told you, observe. Right, observing. Soft knuckles. Callouses on the palm. Callouses? No, don't think so. He leans the charcoal against the right side of his middle finger, and that place is always tainted with black. He holds it softly, between his index and his thumb. He lifts the other two fingers and uses them only to create the shadows. When he wants the charcoal to fade he softly touches the paper with his pinkie. It all vanishes beneath his touch. His soft touch. The way his fingers move over the paper, as if they were capable of producing music by themselves. Focus John!_  
  
He took his pencil, opened the pad, closed his eyes and imagined Sherlock’s hands. And allowed his hand to move, just like Sherlock’s had done twenty four hours before.  
   
Perspective. Open or closed? Open, exposing the long palms, the delicacy of them. The fingers half closed, showing the creases of the articulations.  
   
He moved his hand around, drawing softly and thinking about the way Sherlock’s hands reflected the light, about the parts he would darken, about the dimension. How had he called them? Texture.  
   
He felt completely focused, absorbed into what he was painting, as if he was pouring not only his talent, but his mind, his creativity and his soul into drawing Sherlock’s hands.  
   
It didn’t work.  
   
As soon as he finished, he realized his hands actually sucked.  
   
Completely and totally sucked.  
   
He stared at them in horror, wondering if his hands had been capable of creating such a mess, it looked out of proportion and asymmetrical and the shadows were in the wrong places and they didn’t look at all like Sherlock’s lean and long and perfect hands.  
   
This wasn’t going to work.  
   
Landscaper didn’t sound like such a terrible idea after all.  
   
He sighed and leaned his forehead against the desk. He’d never come back. What he used to be, who he used to be, he would never get it back. And he wasn’t sure if he wanted it, but anything was better than this, than this constant feeling that it had all been a dream, an illusion.  
   
He constantly asked himself why he had chosen this career in the first place, and now he wondered why he had decided to try it once again when he clearly wanted to run away from it when he went to Afghanistan.  
   
But somehow, during those days when there was nothing but powder and heat and sand and it all seemed so far away that even the frontier between life and death was non-existent, John would imagine himself painting. Painting was his way of escaping the horrors of war. He never imagined painting something in particular, simply enjoyed mixing the colors and listening to the sound the paint did then the brush collided with the canvas.  
   
But then he came back home and…nothing.  
   
Nothing at all.  
   
And this lousy, poor drawing was a proof of it.  
   
It was stupid, he wasn’t good at drawing figures, he already knew that, and after one class he wouldn’t end up being a Sherlock Holmes or a Da Vinci, but he expected at least _something,_ something that told him that there was still something artistic within himself.  
   
But it seemed like he left that at Afghanistan as well, just like the rest of his life.  
   
It was pointless and he would get nowhere with those classes, but at least he’d get to see Sherlock Holmes in action.  
   
And he didn’t feel that bad anymore.  
                                                                                               
*******  
   
Thursday came surprisingly fast, and Sherlock found out he really really didn’t want it to come _that_ fast. It was contradictory. A part of him practically begged to see John again, but another part of him told him that it wasn’t okay, that growing attached to people in any way was never a good idea.  
   
He didn’t know which part to hear.  
   
The doorbell rang and he ran to catch it.  
   
Well, apparently that demonstrated which part he had chosen to pay attention to.  
   
John smiled as soon as Sherlock opened the door. It was a soft, small smile that immediately irradiated into Sherlock, who couldn’t help but do the same. They stood there, still, smiling at each other, none of them knowing why, just doing it.  
   
“Hello”, John said.  
   
Sherlock smiled and opened the door wider so he could step in. John kept staring at him as he passed him by and only turned his back against him in order to climb up the stairs.  
   
As soon as they were inside of 221B, John’s eyes fixed on the same corner where he had seen Sherlock’s work in progress two days ago. It was finished now, and it was accompanied by other two works in progress, which brought just a little bit of color to the room.  
   
“You’ve been painting”, John said as he walked towards them and inspected them closely. They were beautiful. Incomplete and far too…academic for John’s liking but they showed all the genius inside of Sherlock.  
   
“Yes”, was all Sherlock replied from the other side of the room.  
   
John reached a hand and touched the soft, precise brushstrokes that blended with the canvas. He smiled wider and turned to look at Sherlock. “They’re beautiful. But you know that already.”  
   
Sherlock gulped and stared at him, taken by surprise. He swallowed and finally replied, “Th-Thank you.”  
   
John nodded. The same stupid smile still plastered on his lips.  
   
Sherlock looked away and cleared his throat, “so erm- have you- brought your homework?”  
   
John’s smile vanished immediately. “Hm-”, he hesitated, turning to look at the pad he was carrying with himself, “Yes but-”  
   
“Show them to me.”  
   
John kept his eyes fixed on the pad but didn’t make any move to actually show the pad to Sherlock.  
   
“John”, Sherlock whispered.  
   
With a roll of his eyes, John (reluctantly) handed Sherlock the pad. Sherlock opened it and stared at the drawings.  
   
“I told you not to draw hands yet, only if you were feeling bold”, Sherlock said, his eyes still fixed on the paper.  
   
John rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Yes, I know, but-”  
   
“They’re terrible”, Sherlock said out of nowhere, then he bit his tongue, feeling a bit uncomfortable for having spoken to John in such a way.  
   
John huffed a laugh, _a laugh!_ “I know. They really are.”  
   
“You’re better than this”, Sherlock said seriously.  
   
John stared at him, mouth hanging open. “I-I…”  
   
“You can do so much better than this. You have the capacity, John. To say I’m disappointed is an understatement.”  
   
John stood silent.  
   
“We need to work twice as hard and you need to prove your dedication.”  
   
John’s brain shut itself off as soon as he listened to the ‘we’. He absentmindedly nodded.  
   
Sherlock walked towards his desk and grabbed two charcoals, he handed one to John and took the other. “Come here”, he said, as he took a big piece of paper over the table.  
   
John stood next to him.  
   
Sherlock looked at him fixedly, a focused look on his face. “What’s charcoal for?”, he asked.  
   
John blinked. “What?”  
   
“What’s the function of charcoal?”  
   
“What’s the function?”  
   
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Yes, the function. You paint abstract things and surrealistic things and mix colors everywhere but surely you must have done at least one or two drawings in charcoal. Now tell me, what is it for?”  
   
John sighed, “for smudging, fading and creating shadows.”  
   
Sherlock smiled, just a tiny smile. “Good. So, take the charcoal and make good use of it. Your drawing sucked because you used a cheap, low-quality, school _pencil_ ”, he said the last word with disdain, “so obviously it wouldn’t be a masterpiece. Now make good use of your materials and draw.”  
   
“Hey! It wasn’t a _cheap_ pencil!”, John complained.  
   
“Then it was a very cheap paper”, Sherlock replied cuttingly.  
   
John couldn’t argue with that. He eyed Sherlock defiantly, took the charcoal and started drawing.  
   
_Smooth, soft trace._  
  
“Have you ever seen the way Da Vinci painted hands?”, Sherlock asked.  
   
“Hm?”, John asked, distracted.  
   
_Do the traces first. The silhouette. The back of a hand, what is its shape? Trace the extremes, you’ll focus on the fingers later._  
  
“Da Vinci’s hands”, Sherlock repeated, sounding slightly annoyed.  
   
“Oh. Erm- no”, John replied as he took his tongue out, just a little bit, without even realizing he had.  
   
Sherlock looked at the gesture with a small smile on his face. Thankfully John was too focused to see it. He remained silent, staring at him fondly before realizing that he should already had been talking by then and that if he didn’t in the next 0.4 seconds John would suspect something was wrong and would turn to look at him with a confused expression only to find Sherlock looking at him as if he was looking at the stars.  
   
Sherlock was good at thinking of outcomes.  
   
He cleared his throat and blinked. John remained completely focused on the drawing -Sherlock wouldn’t criticize it yet, not yet, but he could already tell it was wrong- and his tongue was still touching the corner of his lips.  
   
“I hated them”, Sherlock said.  
   
John laughed, actually laughed at Sherlock’s statement. “You did?”, he said softly and playfully.  
   
“I did”, Sherlock replied good-naturedly. “They lacked details, they weren’t perfect enough.”  
   
“Alright then”, John replied absentmindedly.  
   
“Except for when he drew them in charcoal. When he studied hands he did them perfectly, accurately, respecting the human form. Well, as perfect as hands could be during the Renaissance.”  
   
John smiled a bit.  
   
“Da Vinci always focused on two things: light and expression”, he said, leaning closer to John, as if he was telling him a secret. “He used the way light reflected on the hands to be able to draw them, but more importantly, he felt that hands could tell stories. And so, expression is fundamental. Hands must be positioned so they can become stories. Play with them. Use the lights. Highlight the knuckles, the veins, the bones. Think of the person you’re drawing in a broader context, does he or she works a lot with their hands?”  
   
_Do you?_  
  
“-Then they must have calluses.”  
   
_I don’t think you do._  
  
“Think of their weight and their height, compare them to the hands, make the hands be part of something bigger.”  
   
_Large, skinny, soft but rough, lean, symmetrical, perfect._  
  
“Hands are not static, John. Hands are pure movement and that’s where the biggest challenge is: position the fingers, the palms, the shadows so they reflect such movements”, Sherlock had gotten so close that he was almost whispering in John’s ear.  
   
John looked down and saw Sherlock’s hands leaning on the desk, supporting the weight of his body, maintaining a minimal but carefully defined distance between the two of them. He examined those hands.  
   
_Large, skinny, soft but rough, lean, symmetrical, perfect._  
  
_Sharp angles. Positioned so they’re solidly leaning on the desk but not leaning your whole weight on them. There’s a kind of strength in there, there’s a kind of tenderness in there._  
   
He kept drawing, feeling more focused than he had in a very, very long time. His hand wasn’t trembling at all, it all simply worked. Sherlock had moved apart from him but just slightly, now he was simply staring out the window, not pressuring John, nor criticizing him, simply waiting patiently.  
   
“I do love the hands in one of his paintings”, he finally said, breaking the silence.  
   
“What?”, John said, surprised. How much time had passed? He knew it had been long, for he was taking his time with this drawing, he wanted it to be perfect.  
   
“ _The Lady with An Ermine_ ” _,_ Sherlock said turning to look at John, who was now looking at him, they stared at each other’s eyes fixedly. “Have you seen it?”  
   
“No”, John replied.  
   
“The hands are incredibly delicate, but so perfectly placed that they represent the movement, as if she was caressing the ermine. The articulations are perfectly drawn, and the shadows, John, the shadows”, he said moving his hands in the air. “-They are outstanding. I started drawing hands after I saw hers.”  
   
John raised an eyebrow. Sherlock talked with such passion, that he felt as if art was pouring out of every cell in his body and simply hung in the air, somewhere between them. He stared at Sherlock’s hands as they moved through the air, feeling propelled towards them, desperately wishing he could simply reach out and touch them, feel and check by himself if they truly were soft, rough, tender, or if they had callouses. He licked his lips.  
   
He blinked.  
   
“I”, he cleared his throat loudly. “I think I’ve finished”, he said, feeling anxious and nervous all of the sudden.    
   
Sherlock leaned closer towards him and looked at the drawing.  
   
It was- it was- it was surprisingly good. John looked at Sherlock with a frown, waiting for a response because he felt like they had been an improvement but he couldn’t be sure until Sherlock told him so, and so he looked at Sherlock fixedly, as the artist stared and stared and stared at the drawing.  
   
“Is it-” _good? Not a mess? A disappointment?_  
  
“Are those my hands?”, Sherlock asked quietly.  
   
John hadn’t been expecting _that._ “I- I- um, yes they are. I just, they were close and I could look at them while you talked so-”  
   
“They are- erm”, he cleared his throat, “rather good, John.”  
   
John’s mouth opened, just for a second, before he realized of it and closed it. “I- do you really think so?”  
   
“Yes. An- improvement, from what you just showed me”, Sherlock said picking up the paper and examining it up close. “There are of course some problems with the lighting and the shapes, but, that’s. Good. We can work with this.”  
   
John looked at Sherlock’s fingers holding the drawing and they did look strikingly similar to the ones he had just reproduced with the charcoal, “good”, he said with a silly smile on his face. He desperately wanted to reach and touch those fingers, the _real_ ones.  
   
Sherlock turned to look at him, unable to clear his face from pulling itself in a weird expression that denoted surprise, a pleasant, unexpected surprise. John looked at him with the same kind of wonder, none of them knowing exactly why the other was looking at them that way.  
   
“See? I was right”, Sherlock said after a while.  
   
“Right? Right about what?”, John asked.  
   
“You _were_ better than that.”  
   
John smiled.  
   
*******  
   
“Homework?”, John said looking at Sherlock over tea.  
   
Sherlock shook his head, “no, not after the mess you made of your homework.”  
   
John laughed.  
   
“-Plus, you did a great job tonight. You deserve some spare time”, Sherlock said quietly, in that deep, soothing, profound and complex voice of his.  
   
John swallowed and took another sip of tea, not knowing what else to do.  
   
They stood silent, John kept his eyes fixed on Sherlock’s works in progress. He had two more paintings than two days ago, he had been inspired, and kept working hard on being better and better. He was a perfectionist, in every sense of the word.  
   
He was amazing.  
   
John took another sip of tea.  
   
Sherlock eyed him warily as John looked at the paintings. He didn’t say anything else, but he looked slightly anxious, as if he really cared about what John saw there.  
   
As if John would have anything bad to say about it.  
   
No. After seeing Sherlock drawing the torso two days ago, he couldn’t say anything bad about it.  
   
John finished his cup of tea in silence and (reluctantly) stood up. “This has been very productive but- but I have to go.”  
   
Sherlock stood up too. “Right, right”, he nodded over and over. “Of course.”  
   
_I wish I could stay. I wish I could see you focused on your paintings, drawing the lines of the body, carefully and delicately. I wish I could see the finished product, the joy in your face as you finish it, I wish I could see that smile. I wish I could see you sleeping peacefully and happily in your bed. I wish I could see your face when you wake up. I wish I could see your messy curls in the morning and I wish I could kiss you good morning and-_  
  
_Stop that thought._  
  
“I- Thank you. For all of this”, he said with a nod.  
   
Sherlock aimed to shake his hand. John looked at it reluctantly and shook it.  
   
_Soft. But a couple of callouses there. It will help the next time I draw his hands._  
  
“You’re welcome, John.”  
   
John nodded and walked out, wondering where the hell had all those thoughts come from. How had he allowed that?  
   
He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, wondering what was wrong with him. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about Sherlock?  
   
He closed his eyes, feeling the cold wood of the black door behind his back.  
   
This was a bit not good.  
   
Definitely a bit not good.  


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock listened to different composers whenever he painted, it depended on his mood. Whenever he felt the need to bring intensity into the shapes of the human body, he would listen to Vivaldi, but when he wanted to focus on details, he listened to Bach. Chopin was good for those moments when he went slow, slow, slow, when the body drew itself as a thing to contemplate, to stare at delicately. He could almost feel the skin under his fingertips whenever he smudged the trace of the charcoal. That was what Chopin was good for.  
   
He hadn’t felt like this in ages. He hadn’t felt this spur of inspiration, this raw, deep need to simply draw and lose himself amidst the proportions, the muscles and the lights. It had even been longer since he felt like this without the assistance of drugs.  
   
He couldn’t define it, couldn’t find a way to explain it. He simply felt his hand itching to grab a hold of the charcoal, he missed the smell of the oil paintings, he looked at the white paper in front of him and he felt the need to fill it with life, to turn the empty canvas into a masterpiece.  
   
He didn’t want to admit it, but he knew pretty well why he had felt the inspiration kicking in. John Watson. Ever since Sherlock saw that painting at the Tate Modern he felt it all over himself, but not with the intensity he felt it now. He could only blame it on what he had seen on their class last Thursday.  
   
Seeing John drawing in that way was magical.  
   
He had moved apart just slightly, taken his distance so he wouldn’t look too eager, and preferred to look through the window, but the glass reflection allowed him to take notice of all of John’s soft and delicate movements that treated the paper so carefully, yet with a bit of roughness, as if wishing to leave permanent imprints.  
   
Those movements of the muscles, the way his arms danced around the proportions of Sherlock’s hands, the way his stained hands reflected the light, seeing John in action helped Sherlock to understand the human body in a way he hadn’t before, because he hadn’t bothered to.  
   
He used to think that reading about Greek mythology had brought him a knowledge of the human body that no experience could ever top, but seeing John Watson, he _wished_ he could comprehend the complexity and the imperfection of the human body. Or of John’s body. He didn’t know, he couldn’t tell the difference.  
   
The inspiration was almost as raw and deep as his need to explore John’s body.  
   
In an artistic way. Of course. Nothing else.  
   
He simply had never felt such kind of proximity towards any other human being ever. He couldn’t understand how John had managed to break through his carefully constructed shields and reach to him, but he had, in such little time he had. He never thought he would find someone else to be that interesting, that complex, it just didn’t seem right, this was something Sherlock never did.  
   
But he was eager to do.  
   
He dragged a deep breath. Air by Bach was playing and he felt every single muscle in his brain aligning himself with the music notes and mixing it with the symphonies of the human body. He liked that feeling, when he felt as if art and music were one, when he couldn’t tell the difference between the shapes of the human form and the glissando from one music note to the other. In his brain they all looked the same, they all sounded the same. The traces the lights the shadows the veins the muscles the adagios the harmonies the consonances the ornaments. They mixed together. All of them.  
   
Somehow, that mix described perfectly how Sherlock saw the human body.  
   
Somehow, that mix described perfectly how Sherlock saw classical music.  
   
He had finished sketching the human form for his third painting in the week, now all he had to do was paint it.  
   
He always chose sober, realistic colors. When he looked at the works of Da Vinci or Caravaggio or Vermeer, he never saw a spur of colors. He saw reality. He saw how the artists chose a palette that would distinguish the skin color from the background but being as close to the real skin color as possible. He didn’t see vibrancy or too much saturation, he saw sobriety, and that was how it should be. That was how life was.  
   
Was it? It was hard telling these days.  
   
Yes, yes it was.  
   
He chose a dark background. He mixed dark brown with small, soft brushstrokes of light brown in order to give some texture and dimension to it, for the skin he chose a subtle tone of pink and mixed it with a bit of bronze, thinking a bit about John’s tanned skin, touched by the sun and the sand and the desert and the pain and the scars and creating an imperfect yet beautiful tone.  
   
He added some white and some dark brown to create the shadows.  
   
And there it was, the torso they had drawn on their very first class together, turned into an artwork. Not a masterpiece, no. An artwork.  
   
He leaned back and stared at it. He smiled softly at the color of the skin, it really reminded him of John, and although the shape was a bit flattering, it was as if John’s essence had somehow spread all over the painting. It brought a kind of magic and a kind of life Sherlock hadn’t seen before in his own works.  
   
Fascinating.  
   
 *******  
   
No matter how much he tried, John couldn’t manage to reproduce his own drawing of Sherlock’s hands. It just wasn’t the same anymore. It wasn’t the same when there weren’t _hands leaning a breath behind his neck a voice barely above a whisper a deep passion behind that profound voice a curly head and those cerulean dark green eyes._ It was impossible. Not when Sherlock wasn’t around.  
   
On their first class together, Sherlock had told him he thought of the body as a musical composition.  
   
And John saw entire songs drawing themselves around the shape of Sherlock’s fingers.  
   
And his hair and his eyes and his cheekbones and-  
   
What the hell was wrong with him? He had to stop this. These thoughts weren’t doing him any good, he’d lose his concentration and he’d make a fool out of himself in front of Sherlock.  
   
He couldn’t understand this fascination he felt towards Sherlock, he couldn’t put a name to it, but he loved it. He loved the feeling of it.  
   
The only time he had felt a fascination of this kind he had been at a gallery at the Musée D’Orsay, being 12 years old and watching Van Gogh’s paintings.  
   
It didn’t make sense at all. Sherlock was everything John didn’t like about art: tradition, classicism, academy. He had disliked it ever since he could remember, he disliked the way they only aimed to be realistic and aesthetic and never said anything about the world or about society, except for a few cases. And there was Sherlock, the embodiment of tradition and Ancient Greece and John… _loved_ it. How was it even possible?  
   
It was the way he drew, if definitely was. The way his hand would move on his own, fast and slow, the way his fingers smudged the paper and mixed the black with the white, it was the way a curl managed to find a way to his forehead and stand over his eyebrow, giving him an air of geniality, it was the way his eyebrows drew themselves together, expressing his deep concentration, it was the way those eyes reflected the light, it was the- _stop._  
  
Jesus, he had to stop.  
   
He really had to stop.  
   
There was a thin line between art and life. And he had to learn to separate them. Or it could cause him trouble. It could cause them trouble.  
   
It was Sunday which meant that it was almost Tuesday and John was excited for his next class, which was stupid but also understandable, because he had nothing else to do with his life for now. After coming back he had considered putting into practice all the things he’d learnt at the army and look for a job as a doctor, it was the only possibility he could consider, and he discarded it immediately, he knew he wouldn’t be happy on it, and he was only driven by passions, had been his whole life.  
   
And so he spent all of his days practicing, or writing, or reading, or visiting museums, things that reminded him of what life used to be before the heat and the death came to crowd him over. It was difficult, though. That was why he needed to get better and do it soon, he needed his tremor to disappear forever and he needed his inspiration to come back to him, otherwise he’d end up doing another stupid, impulsive, perhaps deadly thing.  
   
Sherlock had saved him. Back when they first met. John had felt lost and somehow found another purpose in his life thanks to Sherlock. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt it.  
   
Tuesday couldn’t come faster.  
   
*******  
   
“No”, Sherlock said, grabbing the charcoal from John’s hands.  
   
“Hey!”, John protested.  
   
“The lines are wrong! The traces, the shadows, the proportions! It’s not okay! Look at your own arm, John, look at it, and tell me how it resembles _that,_ or how it resembles any other human arm you’ve seen in your life.”  
   
John closed his eyes, annoyed by Sherlock. He knew Sherlock was right, but he was trying his best, the problem was-  
   
“Your hand is shaking”, Sherlock murmured next to him.  
   
John moved apart from the desk and sat himself on the chair, the red one. He liked it. Sherlock always took the black one and it just felt natural going directly to the red chair, as if he’d claimed it from the very first time he sat on it.  
   
He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head against his hands. Sherlock simply stared at him.  
   
John felt tired.  
   
“What happened?”, Sherlock asked softly, staying by the desk.  
   
John didn’t reply. Sherlock didn’t force him to. He simply walked towards the chair in front of him and sat.  
   
John was embarrassed, it was embarrassing, admitting that he was only human, with his flaws and his weaknesses. It was horrible. He never talked about it, why would he?  
   
After a long while in which John buried his face in his hands and Sherlock looked at him, he finally looked up.  
   
Sherlock smiled at him, softly, just the smallest hint of a smile.  
   
“I dreamt of Afghanistan”, John said quietly, “I was used to them, but hadn’t had them in a long while and thought I was over them. I wasn’t prepared for seeing all of that again. I mean, I always saw it, but when it haunts me in my dreams, it gets dangerous, because there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to go to, the bullet burying itself in my shoulder time and time again, and I couldn’t stop it. When I woke up today”, he turned to look at his left hand, “it was trembling again, harder than ever.”  
   
Sherlock nodded. “It’s psychosomatic, you know”, he said.  
   
John stood up and walked around the room, “of course I know, Sherlock! But that doesn’t make it less real. I don’t know how to make it go away. It will take over my art”, he said, the last word sounding muffled, as John struggled with an emotion he didn’t want to deal with at the moment.  
   
“It doesn’t have to.”  
   
“But it will.”  
   
Sherlock stood up and stopped in front of John. He extended his arm. “Show it to me”, he said.  
   
John looked at him with a frown, but Sherlock simply stared at him, invitingly.  
   
Finally, John conceded with a sigh and extended his own arm. He placed his left hand over Sherlock’s palm, feeling the warmth irradiating from the artist’s hand. _Certainly callouses._  
  
Sherlock raised his other hand and slowly, softly touched the back of John’s hand.  
   
John swallowed, feeling goosebumps all over his body at the contact. Sherlock was looking fixedly at his hand.  
   
He then looked up to meet John’s eyes, which were completely absorbed in Sherlock’s, as if there was an unspoken spell around him, not allowing him to look away. They looked into each other’s eyes.  
   
“It’s not trembling now”, Sherlock whispered. They were close enough that John could understand all of the words.  
   
Sherlock’s palm under John’s hand moved up slowly, so their touch was firmer. John’s hand had stopped trembling completely.  
   
“It isn’t”, John replied, whispering too, because it felt like the right thing to do at the moment. Their closeness didn’t allow their voice tone to be higher.  
   
“See?”, Sherlock said, his expression unreadable, “it’s all in your mind.”  
   
“Still, I can’t control it, Sherlock.”  
   
“You’re doing it now, John”, Sherlock replied leaning closer and whispering into John’s ear.  
   
As soon as he did, he let go of John’s hand and walked away from him, sitting in the chair again.  
   
John stood fixed to that spot, unable to move. His brain couldn’t process it all at the same time, it was still trying to adjust to the warmth of Sherlock’s breath by his ear, to the softest hint of his lips touching his earlobe, to the touch of their hands. It took him so long to respond that he hadn’t even realized that Sherlock had walked away.  
   
He didn’t draw anything else that night. But his hand stopped trembling.  
   
John could never tell why.  
   
Well, he did. He just couldn’t admit it. No.  
   
   
*******  
   
Trembling had stopped altogether by Thursday. After the Tuesday class John slept placidly and when he woke up the next morning he was feeling decidedly better. More confident in what he drew at least.  
   
He did lots of ‘studies’ -he would call them studies instead of sketches or drawings, it sounded more professional that way- on Wednesday, thinking about different types of human shapes _Sherlock’s,_ thinking about the contours of human body _Sherlock’s,_ the slim, lean line of…no no, not of Sherlock. Someone else. Definitely someone else, an imaginary someone else…  
   
…whose body shape resembled Sherlock’s. But just slightly.  
   
The studies didn’t go that bad. He was starting to realize that he wasn’t particularly bad at drawing, he never had been of course, he was an artist, he simply hadn’t paid much attention to drawing realistically per se, but once he focused completely on doing so, while he filtered the noise of the street, while he emptied his mind of all distractions, while his hand remained steady, and while he pictured Sherlock guiding him through with advices, his drawings would come out looking…realistic enough.  
   
That was surprising.  
   
John rang the bell of 221B exactly at 7 p.m. on that Thursday night. It took Sherlock less than three seconds to open it. He had been waiting for him. Good. They could keep doing this for a long time. It felt good. It was nice finding someone that shared the same passion but focusing it on a different angle, it was nice having someone to talk to, someone to laugh with, to learn from, to-  
   
Sherlock was looking at him with a frown.  
   
How much time did he spend thinking about all those things?  
   
He cleared his throat, “hello.”  
   
“Hello, John. Do come in”, Sherlock said, opening the door wider. As soon as he did, John noticed that Sherlock looked different from their previous meetings. He used to wear his impeccable suit that somehow never ended up stained in charcoal or anything. He was always wearing his posh jacket with posh shirts underneath, but now he had taken his jacket off and had only the shirt with his sleeves rolled up. He looked different, younger somehow, more at ease.  
   
As soon as they stepped into 221B, Sherlock turned to look at John and fixed his eyes on his left hand. John felt slightly awkward but showed it to him. Sherlock side-smiled at him, “good”, he said, answering an unspoken question.  
   
John sat by the desk and noticed that there were no works in progress in Sherlock’s room. It was empty now. Had he finished them all? Or had he grown frustrated and thrown them away? He really hoped for the former. “What happened to-”  
   
“They’re finished”, Sherlock interrupted, knowing exactly what John would ask.  
   
“Can I-”  
   
“No”, he said with a shake of his head. John stared at him with a frown, “not yet, eventually though, you’ll see all of them.”  
   
John raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything else. He was starting to get to know Sherlock and he recognized a lost cause when he saw one. If Sherlock didn’t want him to see the paintings, he wouldn’t see the paintings, simple as that.  
   
He was dying to, though.  
   
Sherlock looked at John, who was just sitting there, looking at him and fixed his eyes -once again- on his -no longer- trembling hand.  
   
He took a chair and sat in front of the white canvas he had set up in front of a tripod, grabbed a charcoal and started drawing.  
   
_A long line with a curve, another one, is that- is that a palm? He’s turning back to look at me. No, not me, at my hand. He’s drawing my hand. No, don’t draw it. It’s too damaged, it goes against what all those neoclassicists wanted to draw, please don’t. Don’t look at it. But look at it. Don’t draw it. Fix it in your drawing. Fix me with your drawings. Isn’t it wonderful? How life imitates art but in a realistic way? Art has the capacity of imagining beyond of what we have, of what we’re given, perhaps through your drawing you can picture a world in which I’m not broken, in which the damage can somehow be fixed, in which I’m not a failure anymore. I love the way you smudge the trace with your last two fingers, it’s such a soft yet precise movement, Da Vinci used to call it a spesato, did you know that? Of course you did, I looked it up after that one class, I never knew, I never- wait a second. What is that?_  
  
He moved closer towards Sherlock, slightly, moving his hand as if to give him the impression he was doing it so he would get to look at it closely, but it wasn’t because of that, it wasn’t.  
   
_Are- what are those? Are those track marks? You?_  
  
He looked at Sherlock, feeling confused. Sherlock was absorbed in what he was drawing, not even realizing that John was staring at him.  
   
_Oh._  
  
Oh.  
   
It felt- disenchanting somehow, looking at them. They were barely visible, the sleeve had been rolled up so they would be hidden but John could peek the tiny trace along the vein. The dark amidst the light.  
   
Sherlock? Why on earth would someone like Sherlock Holmes need _that?_  
   
They looked recent, very recent. John didn’t know much on the subject, never felt particularly inclined to try them although they were quite popular amongst the artists, but he could recognize that they were not simply scars. They were marks, recent marks.  
   
Sherlock kept drawing his hand. It looked so carefully crafted, so perfect, so free of damage, of bruises, of pain. It reminded him of Sherlock a bit. It looked as if it was a hand that worked on its own, without the need of a brain telling it what to draw or when to do it, or when to choose to let trauma take over it and tremble like an idiot.  
   
It looked as if it had been fixed. Yet art couldn’t make miracles, it hadn’t healed his real hand. John remained just as broken and damaged, only now he had a nice drawing of his hands.  
   
Sherlock always did that, didn’t he? He tried looking for perfection because he thought it would heal him, it would make him reach his own, yet he was…he was only _human._  
  
It was disappointing, somehow. John knew he shouldn’t feel disappointed, but he did.  
   
He looked at the seemingly perfect hand that a seemingly perfect artist was just finishing drawing.  
   
There were track marks on that seemingly perfect artist.  
   
He couldn’t stop thinking about it.  
   
Oh. Sherlock had just finished. Sherlock was looking at him as John stared at his arm.  
   
John looked away but Sherlock had seen, he had seen all the thoughts going through John’s mind, John could tell. Sherlock put the charcoal over the desk and stood up, looking around and tugging at his sleeve slightly, as if he was covering himself up with a little touch of perfection, hiding his damage from plain sight.  
   
John looked down. He felt embarrassed from being caught looking at Sherlock’s marks, but he kept thinking about it, wondering why Sherlock did it. He was a genius, how did drugs help?  
   
“I- erm”, Sherlock said, going to the kitchen as if to distance himself from John. “It’s late”.  
   
John blinked, not understanding the meaning behind Sherlock’s words at first. He looked at his clock, it was 7:30. It wasn’t late but- but Sherlock wanted him to leave. “Oh. Yes”, he said standing up. “Yes”, he tried to convey his disappointment, he didn’t think he’d managed to.  
   
“I just- I have to get up early tomorrow, I forgot-”  
   
“Yes, no, I understand”, he cleared his throat. “It’s fine. Good. I’ll see you later, then?”, not next Tuesday, not next Thursday, simply later.  
   
“Hm”, Sherlock said noncommittally.  
   
“The erm- the drawing, it was- good. Thanks.”  
   
“Yes”, was all Sherlock replied, albeit a bit sharply.  
   
“Yes well, goodnight.”  
   
Sherlock opened the door and didn’t reply. He closed it as soon as John stepped out.  
   
_Human._ Sherlock was human. Probably a drug addict? Probably sad and lonely? Who knew? John certainly didn’t.  
   
Disappointingly human.  
   
Or maybe not, not disappointing.  
   
Was it?


	7. Chapter 7

John had ruined it all.  
   
He’d known it since the very moment he caught Sherlock’s eyes catching his own eyes that were undeniably fixed on the track marks.  
   
It had been a stupid response. He really shouldn’t have reacted in that way, but honestly, was there other way he could have reacted rather than disappointed? He couldn’t come up with any other outcome, he truly was disappointed.  
   
He couldn’t stop wondering whether Sherlock had taken them before each class or after each class or while he was drawing his beautiful and perfect pictures or while he was painting them. It was as if a barrier of secrets had fallen over the two of them, tearing them apart.  
   
No matter how much he tried, John couldn’t come up with a solution to this mess he had created. He knew Sherlock wouldn’t talk about it, lest of all with him, he wasn’t that important in his life and it would only make things more uncomfortable and difficult. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t see himself going to Baker Street the next Tuesday looking for a class and pretending as if nothing had happened. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep the pretense for long enough.  
   
This was all a disaster.  
   
John rubbed his eyes tiredly.  
   
So what? What if Sherlock didn’t want to talk to him ever again? He’d survive, it wasn’t as if his whole world moved around Sherlock.  
   
Except it seemed like it lately.  
   
 _Stop speaking nonsense._  
  
Anyway, if Sherlock didn’t want him in his life then that was fine by him, he wouldn’t go and beg, he wouldn’t bounce around him like a puppy, he was John Watson, he had a goddamned picture on the Tate Modern, and if no one wanted to teach him how to paint a body then he’d teach himself.  
   
Although it did lose its appeal when he took the Sherlock element out of it.  
   
Still, he would prove Sherlock that he was able to draw without his help, and Sherlock would find it out because he’d see it exposed on the Tate Modern, right next to his other painting. He’d see it and look at it with a fond smile, feeling proud of the man he had taught-  
   
Wait wait wait  
   
That was definitely not how Sherlock would react. John sighed. He was making one fatal mistake: he was idolizing Sherlock Holmes, he was putting him in a pedestal and never letting him go, admiring him and thinking far too much of him when the truth is that Sherlock is only human. Only flesh and blood, as perishable as anyone else and looking for some kind of redemption, some kind of immortality through his paintings. Didn’t they all look for the same?  
   
Sherlock was human and he got bored and he needed excitement and life sometimes became too much and he looked for shelter in drugs.  
   
Of course, that made sense.  
   
Except for the fact that John was thinking about Sherlock even though he had just told himself he wouldn’t, but it wasn’t as if he could stop his brain from thinking. It was impossible, ever since that first meeting at the gallery, Sherlock had been a constant in John’s mind.  
   
Sherlock was looking for immortality through art.  
   
But Sherlock was already immortal, unperishable and undefeatable in John’s brain.  
   
And John didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  
   
***  
   
Sherlock had ruined it all.  
   
As soon as the door of the flat closed, he slumped himself in the couch and looked at the tiny trace the drugs had left in his body. _Stupid stupid stupid why did you have to wear those clothes? Why were you trying to leave an impression on him? To make him comfortable around you? Look how that turned out to be, genius._  
  
He felt embarrassed and ashamed and angry and he wanted to go out to the street and find John and kick him for getting into something that was clearly not his business and yell at him and tell him to leave him alone and then kiss him passionately while the cars passed them by and-  
   
Woah, how had that thought crept in there?  
   
It didn’t matter, now it was nothing but wishful thinking, but desiring too much, but wanting what he couldn’t have, and what he was certain after the class, would never have.  
   
He had to stop those thoughts and be realistic.  
   
It was interesting, he had always thought of himself as a logic-driven person who saw the causes and the consequences of almost every action and looked for possible outcomes while keeping his head cold.  
   
But on John, there had been nothing but a history of impulses.  
   
And a history of emotions and a history of self-discovery and a history of finding value in life and in art again.  
   
He had acted on impulses most of the time when it came to John, he simply couldn’t help it. Ever since he looked at that masterpiece at the Tate Modern, he realized that life in such a way was nothing but a lie. Sometimes impulses were as necessary as pure logic.  
   
Oh God, how much he wished he could be strong enough, brave enough to act on impulse this time.  
   
But he wasn’t like that, he moved by pure logic, that was who he was.  
   
Except for those unusual impulses that appeared in his mind, out of nowhere, unbidden and uncontrolled. Sherlock wished he could stop them, but he didn’t really want to. It was…appealing, to say the least.  
   
He’d think of John’s body, for artistic purposes of course. There was something curious about his body, it was an imperfect union of elements that joined together were simply perfect. Sherlock had never seen anything of the such, and he knew that human bodies didn’t behave in that way, human bodies were imperfect by definition, but John was-  
   
John, with his strong muscles that had gone through sand and heat and death and loss, John with his tanned skin and his genuine smile that after seeing all the horrors of war and evil still managed to find a way in his face, John with his blonde hair and the small shrink of his nose when he’s focused or angry and with his shining eyes when he looks at Sherlock or when he takes a charcoal. John was meant to be explored, not simply as an enigma, nor as a case, he was meant to be explored in all his humanity, with his own scars and traumas, with his complex, burdened mind. John was far much more than a conundrum, John was far much more than an artistic piece, John was the conjunction of all those elements, the impossible yet existent mix of light and shadow, of perfection and imperfection. And Sherlock was eager to explore every single molecule, every single cell, every particle that composed him, he was filled with a raw need to know him, to explore him, to _lo-_  
  
 _Stop that thought immediately!_  
  
Sherlock opened his eyes. He didn’t know at which point they had drawn closed, and his breathing was ragged, and he felt decidedly uncomfortable.  
   
He had to stop this. He had to stop wishing what he’d never have.  
   
It wasn’t a possibility now, it wasn’t a question. It was simply a universal truth: something that was never meant to happen and never would.  
   
When Sherlock was seven years old, he saw a rainbow in the sky. He looked at the colors that mixed each other and yet distinguished one another and merged themselves with the soft blue of the sky. He attempted to reproduce it over and over again, and never managed to. No matter how much he tried, the colors never reached that simple yet complex mix of that rainbow. He grew tired of colors eventually, for they would never be quite as real as reality itself, as nature itself.  
   
John exemplified precisely that same thing. He was like the rainbow, unattainable, unreachable, complex, simple, perfect, a nature’s creation. Sherlock was always meant to spend the rest of his life trying to reach the colors of the rainbow through art, but never doing it so.  
   
It was never meant to happen.  
   
And now he had ruined it. As he was meant to do.  
   
And he was back to loneliness and shadows and that hideous stagnation he had managed to forget about since he looked at John’s painting.  
   
He knew that there was nothing left. He had gone back to where he started.  
   
And he’d have to make peace with it. Get used to it. He had a lifetime of losses, another one wouldn’t kill him.  
   
The problem wasn’t the loss in itself, it was the prospect of what could have been. The illusions, the ideals, the what ifs. That was the problem.  
   
John had been a constellation of what ifs, and Sherlock couldn’t stop it. His mind raced over and over, creating a thousand different scenarios in which they could have worked, but not in this universe. It simply wasn’t meant to happen in this universe, in this lifetime.  
   
He’d be okay with it, eventually.  
   
He’d known it since he was seven years old anyway.  
   
***  
   
Tuesday passed by. Thursday passed by. John didn’t go. He was embarrassed. He didn’t want to face Sherlock again. He knew it was all his fault for acting that way, the damage was already done, and it was fine. It was okay, it’d be.  
   
He had Sherlock’s number but didn’t feel capable of calling him nor texting him. He didn’t know what to say, how to say it.  
   
He wondered if Sherlock had taken them again, if he craved them, if he needed someone to talk to, if he felt lonely, if he missed him, if he-  
   
Of course not.  
   
It was Saturday and he was exhausted, yet he had done nothing during the whole week. He couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t the kind of physical exhaustion, it was the kind of mental exertion that wasn’t palpable, but was always there, as a constant feeling that couldn’t be stopped because there was no way of stopping it.  
   
It felt oddly familiar.  
   
Oddly familiar to that second day after coming back from Afghanistan, when he’d wake up to the awful taste of sand and blood in his mouth, when his shoulder would stab him over and over and remind him that life was not what it used to be.  
   
It was a feeling that stopped as soon as he saw that madman staring fixedly at the picture Mike had taken. That madman who looked at him and knew it all, as if he’d known him all his life and was waiting for the exact second so he’d be able to introduce himself into his world.  
   
And turn it around.  
   
He couldn’t simply leave that apart because of a stupid mistake. There wasn’t such thing as coincidences. They were meant to.  
   
From their very first second of existence on Earth, they were meant to.  
   
They were meant to save each other.  
   
And that’s exactly what John would do.  
   
***  
   
Sherlock wasn’t sleeping, not particularly. He hadn’t slept properly ever since that Thursday night, which was stupid, and illogical, but it was true. Still, he wasn’t prepared to hear the ring of his doorbell at three in the morning.  
   
 He stood up immediately and considered whether to open the door or not, but whatever it was, it meant that there was something that needed to be addressed urgently, and so he opened it to-  
   
 _John._  
  
“John?”  
   
John looked up with a nervous smile. He looked slightly anxious, slightly worried. Was he okay?  
   
“Um, hi.”  
   
Sherlock frowned, “it’s three in the morning”, he said.  
   
John looked surprised. “Is it?”  
   
Sherlock nodded.  
   
John rubbed the back of his head, “erm- can I come in? It’s just- it’s a little bit cold in here”, he said, rubbing his hands together.  
   
Sherlock stared at him. What was he doing here? They hadn’t seen each other since the night he left, he hadn’t come to the classes, hadn’t attempted any form of contact with him, hadn’t shown any interest whatsoever, so why coming to Baker Street at that time? He was surprised, but mostly worried, what if-  
   
“Sherlock?”  
   
“Hm?”  
   
“I just asked you if I could come into your house.”  
   
“Why?”  
   
“It’s cold and I’d like to-talk to you in private.”  
   
Private? Isn’t the street private enough at three in the morning? What requires them to-  
   
“But em- it’s fine if you don’t want me to, we could- we could talk here.”  
   
He looked uncomfortable.  
   
He disliked seeing John uncomfortable.  
   
He opened the door wider. As soon as he did, John looked at him up and down. Sherlock felt embarrassed. He looked terrible. He had his pajama bottoms and his dressing gown and that old brown t-shirt he used to wear when he got high. He’d worn the same clothes the whole day, he hadn’t felt up to putting anything else on.  
   
John simply kept walking and climbed up the stairs.  
   
He stopped in the living room. Sherlock walked in right behind him.  
   
John rubbed the back of his head. “Listen, I want to apologize-”  
   
“Apologize? What for?”  
   
“For acting all weird, and being an asshole, I’m sorry”  
   
Sherlock knit his eyebrows together. “About what?”  
   
John sighed, “I know you know I saw them.”  
   
“Saw what?”  
   
“…the track marks.”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“So, I’m sorry for acting the way I did. I didn’t intend to- I just-”  
   
“It was a perfectly logical response, John.”  
   
“No, it wasn’t! I shouldn’t have reacted that way, I should have…I should- I don’t know!”  
   
“You don’t know what?”  
   
“I shouldn’t have judged you. Sherlock, I just want to say that, if you need someone to talk to, well, there’s um- me.”  
   
“About what?”  
   
“Nothing at all. Look can we just pretend that none of this happened and just go back to normal?”  
   
“Fine by me.”  
   
“Are you alright?”  
   
“Why wouldn’t I be?”  
   
“No reason at all. Just- yeah.”  
   
There was an uncomfortable silence falling over them. John cleared his throat and looked around. The place was messier than usual and Sherlock hadn’t painted anything else ever since so the room was devoid of life but filled with junk, old papers and paints spread around the place. Sherlock felt the need to say something, to take John out of his reverie. He could offer him a cuppa but he didn’t feel like doing it, perhaps he could tell him that they’d have their classes back on Tuesday or what their next class was going to be about or-  
   
“I stopped taking them.”  
   
No, he wasn’t supposed to say that.  
   
“Hm?”  
   
“The drugs. I stopped them.”  
   
John’s face cleared. “Oh, really? How long ago?”  
   
“About three months ago.”  
   
“But those are recent marks.”  
   
“No. Those are recent _scars_ ”, Sherlock clarified.  
   
“Oh.”  
   
“I was in rehab for a month and stopped ever since.”  
   
Sherlock scolded himself internally for saying too much, but somehow he felt the need to let John know, to let John know that he hadn’t been high during their classes, that he had considered the idea two months ago, before going to an annoying gallery and finding a fascinating painting that turned his whole world around, that he was the artist behind that fascinating painting, that he was the one who kept him right, but he didn’t. He’d settle with letting John know that he wasn’t taking them anymore.  
   
“That’s- that’s good. I’m glad you- stopped.”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“Are we okay then?”  
   
“Of course we are.”  
   
John smiled, that bright, clean smile that mixed colors that touched each other and yet distinguished one from other and that merged itself with the light blue of the sky. Sherlock felt drawn to that smile as if there was a magnetism behind it and couldn’t help but smile back.  
   
John broke the smile to stifle a yawn.  
   
“Why did you come at three in the morning?”, Sherlock asked.  
   
“Because- I couldn’t sleep. And I had to talk to you. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”, John asked, the words coming out a bit slurred.  
   
Sherlock kept the smile plastered on his face, “You did not. I couldn’t sleep either.”  
   
“I missed our classes”, he said drowsily.  
   
“I’m glad you did. That means you’re enjoying them”, Sherlock replied, trying not to convey the surprise at John’s statement.  
   
“Of course I am. You’re a- great teacher.”  
   
 _You’re a brilliant artist._  
  
“I know.”  
   
John laughed. “Of course you do.” He yawned again.  
   
“You look tired.”  
   
“I am. I’d better go.”  
   
 _Don’t. Stay._  
  
“Yes.”  
   
 _No._  
  
“Well, I’m glad, we’re okay. I- thank you for talking to me. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for coming at this hour but-”  
   
“It’s fine. Take care, John.”  
   
John nodded with a smile. “Yeah, you too.”  
   
He walked towards the door and, before opening it, he looked back and stared at Sherlock. They looked at each other for a while, silently.  
   
“Tuesday?”, John asked softly and playfully.  
   
Sherlock’s smile widened. “Tuesday”, he replied.  
   
John closed the door behind him, a smile still drawn in his face.  
   
It was meant to be there.


	8. Chapter 8

 “This is getting boring, you know?”, John said as Sherlock looked through the window. He had just finished a drawing -a surprisingly good drawing- of a right leg, but it really was getting boring.  
   
He saw Sherlock stiffen immediately. His back went rigid and the man wouldn’t turn to look at him. He didn’t say anything.  
   
Neither of them did for a long while.  
   
“There’s no need to say anything John, you can simply walk out the door and leave”, Sherlock replied, sharply.  
   
John sighed, that was not at all what he had meant to say. Not at all. “That’s not- that’s not what I mean”, he said softly.  
   
Sherlock remained silent. John couldn’t look at his face.  
   
Things got awkward between them sometimes. There were moments when they looked at each other silently and then tore their gaze away from the other, and then this horrible silence fell over the flat, and John didn’t know how to fill it, didn’t know what to say. Sherlock looked like he didn’t know what to do either, and no matter how hard John tried, he had no idea why it happened, he couldn’t understand, he couldn’t put a name to it.  
   
“What did you mean, then?”, Sherlock said, just as lowly as John’s.  
   
“I meant that- drawing legs and arms is getting boring. I want more. I want a real challenge, Sherlock”, he said, turning to look at him, while Sherlock still stared out the window.  
   
“I’ve improved, I’ve gotten better. I want more, Sherlock.”  
   
Sherlock stood still for a moment.  
   
He finally turned to look at him, his arms were crossed.  
   
“There’s- I- I love the classes, I love them, but I want to learn more, I want you to teach me more things, I want to know everything.”  
   
A small trace of smile drew in Sherlock’s face and his expression relaxed slightly.  
   
“I can’t keep drawing legs and arms for the rest of my life. Can you imagine them in my paintings? Just floating around amidst the colors? That would be too surrealistic, even for me”, he said with a small smile.  
   
Sherlock smiled too, “actually, that does sound like something you’d include in your paintings.”  
   
John pretended to be affronted for a moment, “you’ve only seen one of my paintings!”, he said with a smile and a frown.  
   
“Oh, but I know your style well enough.”  
   
“Fine, fine. Maybe that’s true, but I might want to put other body parts floating around in my paintings, wouldn’t I?”  
   
Sherlock laughed, “sometimes I wonder if I might regret teaching you this in the future”, he said, good-heartedly.  
   
“You won’t”, John said decidedly. But he stood still for a moment, looking away from Sherlock, thinking, the smile fading from his face. He wasn’t really certain if he would ever paint again. The idea was there, the need was there, the paints were there, but his hand betrayed him, over and over.  
   
Sherlock stared at him fixedly, as if he could read his mind. “You will paint again, John.”  
   
John looked at him and raised his eyebrows, perhaps he _could_ read his mind. He was struck by Sherlock’s intelligence and perception. He sighed, “you don’t know that.”  
   
Sherlock’s eyes roamed down John and stopped as they fixed on his left hand. “I do. I’m certain of it. Absolutely, completely certain”, he said softly.  
   
John’s hand twitched slightly under Sherlock’s scrutiny. It wasn’t shaking, it was still and responsive, but the way Sherlock’s eyes fixed on it, the way he spoke, it was- “thank you”, he said, after clearing his throat.  
   
Sherlock looked up and met his eyes with a nod. “Any time”, he replied.  
   
John looked away again, sometimes he felt like Sherlock knew more about him than he should. But he didn’t really care. It was good sometimes that Sherlock knew what he didn’t have the courage to say.  
   
“You want a challenge, then?”, Sherlock asked after a silent while, smirking.  
   
John raised an eyebrow, “yes”, he said decidedly.  
   
“Fine. Your homework for Thursday will be to bring me a self-portrait.”  
   
John swallowed. “A- a self-portrait?”, he asked, swallowing.  
   
Sherlock shrugged. “You said you wanted a challenge.”  
   
John stood straight, “and I do”.  
   
“Do you realize you do that?”  
   
John frowned, “do what?”  
   
“Assume a military pose when you feel intimidated”, Sherlock replied, matter-of-factly.  
   
Sometimes it was definitely _not_ good that Sherlock knew what he didn’t have the courage to say.  
   
John cleared his throat. “I am not intimidated. Why would I be?”  
   
Sherlock lowered his voice. “You tell me.”  
   
John swallowed.  
   
“I- hm, it’s getting late and so- I guess I’d better go. Yes. Erm.” Damn it. Where the hell were the words when he needed them? They were scattered in the air but he was unable to catch them, his brain far too busy trying to have a proper reaction to Sherlock’s voice.  
   
Sherlock looked down for a second. “Hm. Yes. It’s-”, he looked at his phone, “11 o’ clock? What?”  
   
“What? Really?”, John asked, just as surprised as Sherlock.  
   
Sherlock nodded.  
   
“Then I’ll definitely go. Thank you for this class”  
   
“For this _boring_ class”, Sherlock said rolling his eyes.  
   
John stopped in front of the door, “I told you-”  
   
“I know”, Sherlock interrupted him.  
   
“Alright then”, he looked at Sherlock before turning again and closing the door behind him.  
   
He could hear a sigh just before he closed it.  
   
*******  
   
“This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, you should feel offended with yourself.”  
   
“Hey!”, John said.  
   
“Oh, I’m sorry, do you think _this_ is a good drawing?”, he said, raising the notepad so John could take a proper look at it.  
   
John grimaced. “It’s not _that_ bad”, he said, defensively.  
   
“Yes well, a perfect depiction of your right eye, right there in the forehead, while the left one is almost touching your lip.”  
   
“Perhaps I like Picasso that much.”  
   
“And those pupils… I didn’t know you took drugs.”  
   
“Drugs?”  
   
“Yes, drugs. The only reason why you could possibly have one pupil seven times bigger than the other.”  
   
John rolled his eyes, “Sherlock-”  
   
“Good nose job, too.”  
   
“Okay stop”, he said taking the pad off Sherlock’s hands.  
   
Sherlock put his hands over his hips. “We have a huge amount of work to do”, he said with a sigh.”  
   
“Yes well, we could have started twenty minutes ago instead of wasting time with your critiques.”  
   
“You’re angry.”  
   
“I am not. I simply don’t see why we’re wasting so much time we could be using teaching me how not to be an absolute and complete failure”, he snarled.  
   
“Perhaps you could use that time at an anger management course”, Sherlock replied.  
   
John’s hands clenched into fists. Sherlock looked away and cleared his throat. “Fine.”  
   
John grabbed a charcoal and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.  
   
“No. We’re not using it today.”  
   
John frowned, “we’re not?”  
   
Sherlock shook his head, “look at what using charcoal did to your face”, he said, pointing towards the pad.  
   
John sighed, “what are we using, then?”  
   
Sherlock went to his bedroom and came back with a big jar filled with pencils of all kinds, John stared at it and whistled, “nice”, he said.  
   
Sherlock nodded. “We’re using graphite. Graphite is for details, small details.”  
   
“I know that.”  
   
“I know you do but your school pencil won’t allow you to draw those details.”  
   
“For God’s sake, Sherlock! I haven’t bought anything since I came back! I was lucky I found something I could draw with!”  
   
“Why haven’t you bought new pencils, then?”  
   
“What?”  
   
“That’s not an excuse, you didn’t buy new ones since we started our class. You don’t trust in your own ability and therefore would rather not spending money on something you won’t use after we’re done, am I wrong?”  
   
John stood there, his mouth half-opened. “Shut up.”  
   
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Anyway, as you might -or might not- know, pencils are hard and soft. H is for Hard, B is for Soft.”  
   
“Of course I know that, you twat. The harder the pencil, the lighter the trace.”  
   
Sherlock side-smiled. “Very good, my Watson is learning.”  
   
John swallowed.  
   
“Yes. I have them all, from 9B to 9H.”  
   
“Of course you do. You and your damned obsession with light and shadow.”  
   
“Of course I do. In order to draw your face, we need a strong pencil whose tip won’t break under your trembling hand.”  
   
John sighed in exasperation. Sherlock and his bloody lack of tact.  
   
“And it’s better to have lighter traces so you’d erase it easily, I’m certain you’ll be needing the eraser a lot.”  
   
“Fine, yeah, eraser and a hard pencil. I’ll take a 4H, fine?”  
   
“Yes, that’s a good one. Now, keep your traces soft, we don’t want marks on the paper. Also look at that poor paper you used on your drawing, please John, how do you expect to get a good result when you sketch in the same paper people use for mathematical sums?”, he said with disdain.  
   
“I don’t want to buy one yet. Not yet.”  
   
Sherlock brought his own Bristol board. “We’ll use this for now, any even surface will do.”  
   
John nodded.  
   
Sherlock took the 4H pencil from John’s hands, their fingers brushing slightly. John’s skin tingled.  
   
“Fetch me the mirror”, Sherlock said as he stared at the paper fixedly.  
   
John brought it to him.  
   
“Look at yourself”, Sherlock said, turning to face John.  
   
So John did.  
   
“Look at your eyes”, Sherlock instructed him softly.  
   
John brought the mirror closer to him and stared at his own eyes. Sherlock looked at the reflection in the mirror. He liked John’s eyes. While he was growing up, people used to tell him all the time that they couldn’t put a name on the color of his own eyes, because sometimes they were blue, then they were green and then they turned grey.  
   
John’s eyes never changed.  
   
And yet the color of his eyes was as difficult to name as his own.  
   
They were quite particular. On plain sight, they looked dark. They looked dark the first time their eyes met, that night on Mike’s gallery. Then they looked blue, a strange shade of blue, a kind of blue Sherlock had never seen before, anywhere.  
   
John’s eyes were a mystery. Light showed their color, dark hid them. A perfect chiaroscuro right there, in the same place.  
   
John blinked at him. “Sherlock?”, he asked.  
   
Sherlock cleared his throat. “Yes, yes. Look at them.”  
   
“I already did.”  
   
“ _Observe_ them. Do it carefully. Look at the shape. Eyes have different shapes, some are rounded, some look like almonds, others are in diagonal, angled towards the nose. Look at your own shape.”  
   
John nodded as he looked at his own eyes.  
   
“The eyelashes. How many are there?”  
   
John laughed, “a lot.”  
   
“Yes but not enough. Are they long?”  
   
“I suppose so? I don’t know.”  
   
“They are. Longer than normal, at least, just not that notorious because of their color.”  
   
John blinked. “You’re observing them too”, he whispered.  
   
“I am”, he whispered and felt John shiver next to him. He looked down and realized that his lips were almost touching his earlobe. He didn’t move away.  
   
“What do you see?”  
   
Sherlock swallowed, “Contrast”, he said to John’s ear.  
   
“What?”, John asked, confused.  
   
“Yes. Contrast. Look at the point where your pupil and your iris touch. Look at the contrast there. It’s a soft, yet notable contrast between dark blue and black. See?”  
   
John nodded. “I always liked that, yeah”, he said with a soft smile.  
   
“Me too”, Sherlock said without thinking. “Erm- I mean, I always liked that contrast in _people’s_ eyes.”  
   
John stood silent.  
   
“That’s the first thing you’ve got to picture once you start drawing your eye”, he said, his lips skimming John’s skin. He wasn’t even trying to break apart, not anymore. He was enjoying it far too much to break away.  
   
“Y-Yes”, John’s voice stuttered.  
   
“Do it softly, gently. Trace the eye and look at the gradation in which you’ll fill the trace, because that will be what will give identity to your own eye. Make your irises your own”, he whispered.  
   
At that, John’s eyes shut closed, Sherlock could see it through the mirror, he frowned.  
   
When John replied, he was slightly out of breath, “I’ve seen them, what now?”, he didn’t pull away, Sherlock’s lips still on his earlobe.  
   
“Now take your mental image, translate it to your arm and make your hand move with the symphony.”  
   
John and Sherlock stood still for a moment, neither of them daring to move.  
   
John finally drew in a deep breath and moved apart. He turned to face Sherlock.  
   
At some point, Sherlock’s breathing ragged, when they stared at each other in silence, they were both breathing hard.  
   
Sherlock was immediately filled with a need to touch John’s lips just in the same way he’d touched his ears. Where had that thought come from?  
   
John licked his lips slowly and Sherlock couldn’t help but look at the trace of his tongue.  
   
He blinked and shook his head, shaking himself out of this stupid reverie. He could not, they could not. John wouldn’t want to, anyway. He had to get those silly ideas off his head or they’d end up ruining everything.  
   
John looked away, releasing his breath, as if he’d been trapped and strangled and was just breaking free.  
   
Sherlock closed his eyes. Why on earth did he allow himself to act on impulse? Nothing ever good came out of it. Ever.  
   
“So I’ll draw my eye, then?”, John asked, his voice quivering a little at first.  
   
“Y-yes. Taking into account the image you saw in the mirror. Try to reproduce it _exactly_ as you saw it. Start by tracing the contour, the shape.”  
   
John did so, his hand firm and soft as it moved through the paper.  
   
“Good”, Sherlock said with a smile. “The lines must be very, very faint.”  
   
John nodded. “Eyelashes then?”  
   
“Eyelashes, yes”, Sherlock replied, “scatter them naturally, use sharper traces in order to add the illusion of multiplicity.”  
   
John couldn’t do so at first. He didn’t get the curve of the lashes right, and he’d take over and over the eraser, with an annoyed expression on his face. He was deeply focused on his task, his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth and with a frown. He looked adorable. _What? Adorable? Where did that word come from? Who allowed it into my brain?_  
  
He blinked. “Yes”, he said after John drew a particularly good eyelash. “That’s the perfect shape. Keep it.”  
   
John smiled and kept doing so.  
   
“Some are at the forefront, some at the back. Make the ones in the forefront darker”, Sherlock said excitedly.  
   
“Give me a 2H”, John said, focused.  
   
Sherlock handed it to him, John used it to draw the eyelashes at the forefront.  
   
“Now for the pupil”, Sherlock said, his voice growing more intense. “Draw the bigger circle in the middle and the smaller one. The light! Did you see how the light draws in your eye? I mean, in everyone’s eye. It shines. Leave that space in blank, the trace of the light.  

John drew a small circle in the middle between the pupil and the iris to leave it blank and create the illusion of light.  
   
“You need to draw the limbus! Don’t forget about the limbus!”  
   
“I don’t know what the hell is a limbus!”, John replied just as intensely as Sherlock spoke.  
   
“The junction between the cornea and the sclera!”  
   
“Talk English to me! I don’t know what the bloody hell is a sclera!”  
   
“Ugh! The white thing!”  
   
“The big white thing?”  
   
“Yes, the thing that is not the cornea!”  
   
“Alright, yeah. So I’ll add shadow there.”  
   
“Now color the iris. Remember, it is darker around the edges, there are tiny little universes drawing themselves in the iris, use it. Trace the shapes of your iris softly, just slightly darker than the fill, it will bring the eye to life.”  
   
John was about to when Sherlock yelled. “NO WAIT!”  
   
“WHAT?”, John said, jumping.  
   
“You haven’t changed the pencil! Go back to 4H!”  
   
“You have got to stop yelling at me!”, John yelled.  
   
“SO HAVE YOU!”  
   
“Right”, John said, lowering his tone. “The shapes, slowly tiny galaxies connecting themselves around the black hole of the pupil, right?”  
   
“Please, John”, Sherlock scoffed, “the pupil would hardly be a black hole, it isn’t absorbing everything around. It simply is there. Like a planet. Like Pluto.”  
   
“Pluto is not a planet anymore”, John replied.  
   
“I reeeally couldn’t care less about the solar system.”  
   
“But it’s the solar system!”, John protested.  
   
“I don’t care! Keep drawing!”, Sherlock urged.  
   
John and Sherlock stood silent as John colored the iris, he continued with the pupil, using a 4B pencil. It gave the perfect contrast between the light/dark blue of his eyes and the deep black of the pupil.  
   
As soon as he finished he traced the edges of the eye sharply so they would stand.  
   
Sherlock interjected, “and the optical nerve!”  
   
“Done!”, he said walking away in order to appreciate it better.  
   
Sherlock looked at it, walked towards it, examined it closely, then took three steps back and examined it from there, then he turned his head to the side and examined it again. Finally, he turned to look at John, who looked nervous but rushing with adrenaline.  
   
He didn’t say anything, he simply took John’s chin and lifted his head. He heard John’s intake of breath.  
   
He moved forward and examined John’s eye closely.  
   
Neither of them blinked.  
   
“Fascinating”, Sherlock said. “Almost perfect, John. Congratulations”, he said lowly.  
   
John smiled at him. “You think so?”  
   
“Extraordinary. Hard to believe this came from the same hand that did such a poor imitation of Picasso.”  
   
John laughed and moved his hand to grab Sherlock’s and take it off his chin, “shut up”, he said, good-animatedly.  
   
Sherlock laughed too. They laughed for a while, feeling a deep sense of relief and of comfort in each other.  
   
When their laughter died off, Sherlock realized that John hadn’t let go of his hand, they were softly touching. Just the gentlest of touch.  
   
John looked down and stared at their hands for a moment. Sherlock did so too. They fitted perfectly, somehow. Sherlock wanted to draw them, right there and then.  
   
He saved the image in the depths of his mind palace.  
   
John finally let go.  
   
“Well, this was-”, he rubbed the back of his head, “yeah.”  
   
“Very eloquent, John.”  
   
“This was brilliant, Sherlock”.  
   
Sherlock turned to look at him, surprised, “Oh.”  
   
“ _You_ are brilliant. I just- thank you. I never thought I’d be capable of _this_ ”, he said, pointing towards the picture. “Especially after- after Afghanistan. Thank you”, his voice wavered.  
   
“No need to thank me, John. The credit is all yours, I’ve only provided guidance, but you’ve done it.”  
   
“I could have never done it without your guidance. You are- you just- you _are,_ Sherlock.”  
   
Sherlock felt overwhelmed by that. Which was a really stupid reaction, because John honestly didn’t say anything. “So are you”, he replied.  
   
He didn’t know what he was saying, but he knew it anyway.  
   
John smiled and his smile was so big it felt as if it could fill all the universes he had drawn inside of his iris.  
   
Sherlock smiled back, magnetized by John’s grin.  
   
“Tea?”, he said after a silent moment.  
   
“Yes, please”, John replied.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wouldn't have been possible without [this magnificent tutorial on drawing eyes](https://www.drawspace.com/lessons/1154/draw-a-realistic-eye) by drawspace. I know next to nothing about drawing (nor about pencils) and it helped me so much! :3


	9. Chapter 9

Eyes were difficult to draw.  
   
But eyes without Sherlock next to him giving him instructions were _impossible_ to draw.  
   
John could tell as he stood in front of a Bristol board -he had just bought one- and as he took a 4H pencil -yes, he had bought that one as well- and he tried to draw the other eye, which had been the homework Sherlock had left him.  
   
He wasn’t really in the mood. His hand had been trembling and the atmosphere simply wasn’t right. His flat didn’t have the magic of 221B, his flat was devoid of life, devoid of energy, devoid of creativity, devoid of _color._  
  
Well, to be fair, Sherlock’s flat was devoid of color too, but with a huge, abysmal difference: it had Sherlock in it.  
   
And that was enough to bring color into any place.  
   
He couldn’t explain what was that he felt, he couldn’t put a name into what it was, what they were, he simply couldn’t explain it. It just was. They just were.  
   
   
He couldn’t explain why the thought of Sherlock came into his mind so commonly lately. Well, he could explain it, but he didn’t want to. Deep down inside, he knew quite well that he was slowly -or maybe not so slowly- falling in love with Sherlock Holmes. And he wasn’t doing anything to avoid it. He didn’t want to avoid it. Even though he knew it wasn’t actually going to happen. Still, he liked thinking about Sherlock, he liked how his brain seemed to wake up and fill itself with creativity when the artist appeared in his mind.  
   
Right, but he was thinking about eyes, how did the thought of Sherlock Holmes creep into his mind?  
   
He sighed. It was happening a lot lately.  
   
Suddenly and without even realizing, the trees were Sherlock the colors were Sherlock the sky was Sherlock the stars were Sherlock. Something about those elements always reminded John of Sherlock. All the time.  
   
And he missed him instructing him and whispering to his ear and the feel of his lips against his earlobe and-  
   
Right, the eye.  
   
He looked at himself in the mirror again and looked at his left eye. It was slightly, just slightly smaller than the right one, and it had the same shape, but no matter how much John tried he simply couldn’t achieve what he had done, what _they_ had done the class before.  
   
He tried as best as he could. He really did.  
   
And Sherlock wasn’t going to like it. He certainly wasn’t.  
   
John turned to look at the paints that were lingering over the table. They had been there since he came back from Afghanistan, in a corner, as a constant reminder of all the things he had lost.  
   
He stood up and picked one of them. The yellow one. He liked yellow. So did Vincent.  
   
The brushes were filled with dust and his palette needed a change but it didn’t matter right now. As soon as he opened the yellow paint the smell invaded his senses.  
   
God. It had been so long. _So long._  
  
The last time he had opened an oil paint he felt lost. He had stood in front of white canvas and never found the courage to fill them. He didn’t have the creativity to do so. He didn’t have any ideas, he had nothing.  
   
He longed for something that made him feel alive again, like those years when he had just a couple of pennies in his pocket and a lot of illusions. Like those years when painting was his passion, not his duty.  
   
He longed to go back in time.  
   
But he couldn’t, and this kind of stagnation was driving him insane.  
   
Perhaps it did drive him insane. Perhaps that was why he had chosen to go to Afghanistan in the first place.  
   
He had felt lost. It was the only way he could put it. While he was growing up he constantly dreamt of that magical moment when one of his paintings would be unveiled at a museum, when the newspapers talked about the new artist that was defying all the previous avant-gardes, when all the artists around him admired him and loved his work.  
   
And all of that happened, and he still felt empty.  
   
He used to wonder if there was something wrong with him. He used to wonder at which moment everything seemed to go downhill, not in his career, but in himself.  
   
He used to think that fame and money and girls -and boys- was all he needed to reach happiness, and at first, he thought he felt happy. But after all of that was gone he realized he was never happy, not for a single moment, he hadn’t been happy since the very moment his painting was unveiled at the Tate Gallery.  
   
The only moments when he truly felt happy were when there was nothing but his brush and the smell of oil paintings and the colors flowing through his brain and his hand moving on impulse trying to capture what his brain was picturing.  
   
And Afghanistan took that from him.  
   
And he lost his ‘friends’, he lost his money, he lost his prestige, he lost his popularity and he lost his talent. Now no one cared or even remembered that at some point, not so many years ago, the newspapers were filled with the picture of a teenager who had too many hopes and dreams, and had made them true.  
   
And saw them vanish, too.  
   
*******  
   
Sherlock’s paintings looked… dim. To say the least.  
   
He had always hated what he painted, thinking it was never good enough, but he had never truly and completely _hated_ what he painted as he was doing at that moment.  
   
They were so…lifeless.  
   
They were supposed to represent life and celebrate the human body and the complexity and depth of it and yet this resembled more to a funerary rite than to a living, actual, human body.  
   
Well, two human bodies.  
   
Two human hands, to be exact.  
   
His and John’s.  
   
The image of their joined hands, for that small second on their last class, had been enough to make his brain work, to make his brain flow with images and ideas and he felt that nagging need to paint he only felt while looking at John’s painting.  
   
But this resembled nothing to the actual feeling of their hands joined together, touching softly, feeling incredibly natural with one another, as if they were meant to _be_ there.  
   
This was grim and boring and dull and he was getting tired of it and he didn’t know how to make it better, how to make it brighter, how to make it more colorful.  
   
Oh.  
   
Colorful?  
   
No. Impossible. He hated that. He hated that psychedelic, drug induced, surrealist portrait of reality. Colors didn’t do any good to a painting that wanted to stay true to reality.  
   
But-  
   
No.  
   
Yes.  
   
Maybe.  
   
John liked colors a lot. He used them a lot. Perhaps-  
   
No. That was stupid. He had his own style and he was happy with it. He had learned to love it. He had explored it and analyzed it and over analyzed it. He studied the paintings from the absolute best, and he loved their need to resemble reality.  
   
He wondered if Vermeer or Caravaggio ever hated what they painted.  
   
Probably not.  
   
Or maybe yes, but not as much as Sherlock hated his own painting right now. The shadows and the lights did nothing to express the actual feeling behind it. It was a work to appreciate, not to understand, not to feel with, not to study and analyze.  
   
It wasn’t like John Watson’s painting.  
   
It wasn’t as complex as deep as colorful as complete as incomplete as broken as painful as liberating as enticing as interesting as perfect as John Watson’s painting.  
   
It would never get to be.  
   
John Watson was a genius.  
   
And he was teaching him? Who did he think he was?  
   
He sighed and leaned against the back of his chair. It was at moments like these that drugs were…necessary to say the least.  
   
But no. He wouldn’t do it. He’d hate to see the disappointment in John’s face. He knew it would drive him away, and he knew it was what he was supposed to do, but he didn’t want to do it.  
   
He couldn’t picture a life without John Watson in it.  
   
Life after John Watson was… hideously colorful.  
   
And wonderful.  
   
And hateful.  
   
And perfect.  
   
*******  
   
“Look at it.”  
   
“Yeah, I’ve seen it!”, John said exasperatedly.  
   
“Did you take in the shape, the color? Since you’re so fond of colors”, Sherlock said with a roll of his eyes.  
   
“Yes, _yes,_ I did”, John replied.  
   
“Alright”, Sherlock said, slowly walking away without taking his eyes off John’s, looking at each other through the mirror.  
   
“Wait”, John said, turning to look around. “Where are you going?”  
   
“Be there in a minute”, Sherlock replied from his bedroom, or his bathroom, John couldn’t be quite certain.  
   
He came back a moment later, carrying a big box with him. He placed it in front of the desk where they kept all their supplies.  
   
“What’s that?”, John asked with a frown.  
   
Sherlock smiled softly at him, John could see from the corner of his eye, and he couldn’t help but smile back, just the barest twitch from his lips.  
   
Sherlock opened it slowly, and it revealed…  
   
John’s breath caught.  
   
A _gigantic_ collection of oil paints. There were all kinds of colors, well, not _all_ kinds of colors, that would be impossible, but there were all kinds of mixtures and tones and hues and John felt something deep deep inside that he could only explain by his physical reaction: heart racing, pupils dilating, a slight weakness on his knees, was he going to faint? Of course not, no.  
   
Sherlock took one of them and handed it to John.  
   
John stared at it. “Autumn orange”, he whispered breathlessly.  
   
*******  
   
 _“What are you painting?”, Harry said as soon as she walked into his flat._  
   
 _“A new work”, he replied._  
  
 _“What about?”, she asked._  
  
 _“Everything. And Nothing. It’s a mix of both, I think. I’m not quite sure. Perhaps it’s leaning more towards the ‘nothing’ but I like to think it expresses the ‘everything’ I feel inside.”_  
  
 _She snorted. “Don’t get all metaphysical with me!”_  
  
 _John rolled his eyes._  
  
 _“It’s huge”, she said._  
  
 _“Yeah, I know. I expect it to be different from all the other things I’ve done.”_  
  
 _“Reminds me of that big painting we saw at the MoMA once, remember? The Picasso one.”_  
  
 _John laughed, “Les Mademoiselles D’Avignon?”, Harry nodded, “No, it’s definitely not like that one”._  
  
 _She shrugged, “I liked it.”_  
  
 _“I did too, but I want to do something less…cubist and a bit more…I don’t know, Starry Night like.”_  
  
 _“Woah, how original”, Harry said sarcastically._  
  
 _“Of course I’m not- I’m not going to reproduce it, that would be quite stupid, I just want to dream my painting and paint my dream, like Van Gogh used to say.”_  
  
 _“Dreaming?”, she laughed, “dreaming about what? An erotic fantasy or something?”_  
  
 _John looked into the horizon. That was precisely the problem. His dreams weren’t exactly happy. His dreams were the subconscious reflection of the rising anxiety that was filling him, dragging him in, pushing it towards its claws and claiming him. And he wanted to run away. And he couldn’t. And so he painted._  
  
 _Vincent had been able to find beauty in madness._  
  
 _He surely would be able to do so, too._  
  
 _“A surrealistic Starry Night, how does that sound?”_  
  
 _“Like a stupid idea”, she replied._  
  
 _“Well, I’m doing it anyway.”_  
  
 _“I wouldn’t have started with orange”, she said with a face of disdain._  
  
 _“It’s not just orange, Harry. It’s Autumn Orange.”_  
  
 _“Ugh, Autumn Orange, who cares?”_  
  
 _“I care! It’s not just an orange! No! It’s orange but there’s a tiny hint of yellow that brings a nostalgic kind of life into it, yet it’s still vibrant, yet it’s still as bright as Autumn. Don’t you see? It’s like an awakening from that Starry Night, only to find a longing to go back to it, and that’s the problem, can’t you see?”_  
  
 _“Yeah, sure, I can see. I can see you’re crazy!”, she said alarmingly._  
  
 _John sighed exasperatedly._  
  
 _“What will you call it?”, she asked._  
  
 _The first word that came to his mind was raw, naked and cruel:_ Anguish. _He didn’t reply._  
  
*******  
   
“It reminded me of your painting”, Sherlock said softly.  
  
John traced the letters with his fingertips, slowly. He kept his eyes fixed to it, going back to that moment, that one final moment before it all went to hell.  
  
“It is quite similar to the color you used as a background”, Sherlock continued after a while.  
   
John couldn’t reply.  
   
“Is it? Maybe I wasn’t thorough enough with the observation-”, Sherlock said, a tinge of nervousness in his voice.  
   
John shook his head. “No. That’s”, he cleared his throat, “that’s exactly the color I used. I hadn’t seen it in ages. I used to love it.”  
   
Sherlock nodded.  
   
John closed his eyes for a moment. He couldn’t count all the times he would sit alone, in the middle of nothing, smelling the stench of death and powder and loss and pain and wishing he could go back, wishing he had never left, wishing he had never become famous, wishing he could just _paint._  
   
For a second that smell invaded his senses once again. It was sudden and fast and John wasn’t prepared for it. He gasped for breath and leaned back, feeling his legs would collapse.  
   
He felt two hands grabbing him strongly, holding him by the forearms. He opened his eyes to find Sherlock staring at him worriedly, a frown in his face. Sherlock. Brilliant colorful beautiful Sherlock.  
   
He took another breath. It smelled of oil paint and of Autumn Orange and of Sherlock Holmes.  
   
And he found the balance again.  
   
“John?”, Sherlock asked.  
   
John nodded. “I’m fine”, he replied, taking a deep breath.  
   
“Are you?”  
   
John stood by himself but Sherlock didn’t let go of him. “Yes”, he whispered as he stared into those impossible cobalt sky blue mint cerulean verdigris turquoise teal tiffany blue eyes. “Yes. It’s just-”, he dragged a deep breath, “are all of these yours?”  
   
Sherlock nodded, his eyes still fixed on John’s. “All of them. I’ve never used them.”  
   
John’s jaw dropped open. “What? _What?_ You’ve never used them?”  
   
Sherlock shook his head. “What for? They’re of no use for me whatsoever.”  
   
John rolled his eyes. “You’re impossible”, he replied.  
   
“That’s a very illogical and inconsequential statement.”  
   
“ _You_ are very illogical and inconsequential”, John replied stubbornly.  
   
Sherlock feigned indignance.  
   
He realized a second later that his hands were still holding onto John’s forearms. He looked down and pulled back, feeling awkward.  
   
John stood straight, ignoring the tingling sensation the warmth of Sherlock’s skin had left on his arms.  
   
“I want you to use them”, Sherlock said, out of nowhere.  
   
John looked up, confused. “What?”  
   
Sherlock shrugged. “I want you to use them in this class. Right now. You have got two- erm, no, one almost perfectly drawn eye and another that could hardly be called an eye but it’s an- effort, and I want you to color them.”  
   
John shook his head instinctively.  
   
Sherlock looked perplexed. “You don’t want to?”, he asked, and for that moment he sounded incredibly small.  
   
John dragged a deep breath. “It’s- it’s not that. I-”, his gaze turned towards his trembling -not trembling now- hand, “my bloody hand”.  
   
Sherlock looked down and took a step closer. Without giving himself time to think it through, he reached out with his own hand and slowly touched the back of John’s hand.  
   
John looked at the touch with fixation.  
   
Warm. Soft. Slightly callousy. Orange autumn.  
   
Sherlock took his hand and examined it carefully. “It hasn’t trembled at all”, he whispered, as he ran his fingertips over John’s knuckles.  
   
John shook his head.  
   
“Try.”  
   
“No.”  
   
“Why?”  
   
“Because-”  
   
“Because you’re _scared_ ”, Sherlock said, a bit sharply.  
   
“No.”  
   
“Then why?”  
   
“Because I don’t want you to see me fail.”  
   
Sherlock released John’s hand immediately and walked towards the window.  
   
They stood still, in silence. The tension felt as if air itself was drowning them.  
   
“Then don’t”, Sherlock said, breaking the ice-cold tension.  
   
“Don’t what?”  
   
“Don’t fail”, Sherlock replied. “So I won’t have to see you failing.”  
   
“That’s not under my control”, John replied.  
   
“Of course it is, John. And you’re perfectly capable of doing it. You’ve proved yourself better than you thought you were in these classes, haven’t you?”  
   
John nodded.  
   
“Then _do_ it”, Sherlock replied, going to their desk and taking a brush. He held it in front of John. Soft. Expensive. Orange.  
   
John eyed it hesitantly.  
   
“I want to see you mixing colors, feeling them, creating with them, imagining possibilities, bringing a touch of life into every single one of your traces. This is your opportunity to prove me wrong, to show me the magic hidden within each hue, within each tone. _Do it,_ John, show me that colors are as perfect and complete as the human body itself, show me what the combination of both can do.”  
   
John grabbed the brush from Sherlock’s hands, their fingers meeting each other for the shortest of seconds.  
   
“I never understood the point of using these kind of paints on canvas”, Sherlock said as John grabbed the brush from him.  
   
John turned to look at him with surprise, “look at them, Sherlock”, he said.  
   
Sherlock looked at them and then at John.  
   
“Look at the vibrancy of the tones, oil paints make it possible! The pigmentation makes the color richer, makes it _live,_ Sherlock. Oil paints are immortal. Whereas acrylics fade and aquarelles vanish, oil paints remain in time, they’re a fixed point. Their color remains. Perhaps time will change it just a little, but it will preserve the texture, the complexity and the beauty of their colors. You’re wasting them by using just a palette of browns and pinks, Sherlock, they’re giving you a universe of options and yet you choose to settle with one of the thousands of millions of stars.”  
   
Sherlock stared at him for a moment, stunned. He blinked. “Did you just insult me?”  
   
John shrugged. “I merely stated the facts.”  
   
Sherlock smiled. “Show me”, he said. “Show me the universe of possibilities.”  
   
John looked at the brush in his hand and nodded. “I will”, he replied.


	10. Chapter 10

“Which color?”, he asked Sherlock.  
   
“You’re the expert.”  
   
“Yes but you’ve seen my eyes.”  
   
“I don’t know.”  
   
“Me neither.”  
   
“Try for _Air Force Blue_ ”, Sherlock said, rolling his eyes at the stupid name as he pointed towards the color. John looked at it closely, it _did_ look quite similar to his own. Except his were a little darker.  
   
“Yes. But it needs to be mixed. Mine are not that blue nor that bright. Storm Cloud looks good.”  
   
Sherlock nodded. Then he slowly took John’s chin and turned his head towards him so they were facing each other. John gasped at the touch.  
   
Sherlock’s eyes met his.  
   
Deep profound complex beautiful. John felt he could saw a thousand different oceans drawing themselves in Sherlock’s eyes.  
   
And if Sherlock’s pupils went slightly bigger, well they wouldn’t talk about it.  
   
He was pretty certain his were doing exactly the same thing.  
   
It was the light. Of course it was the light. He had no other reason to suspect otherwise.  
   
Sherlock opened his mouth to say something, but he came up with nothing for a while. John’s eyes roamed down for just a couple of seconds, just a couple of small and far too short seconds, and stopped in front of Sherlock’s gaping mouth. For a moment, a fleeting moment, John wondered what it’d be like to kiss those lips. Dry yet soft, pliant and demanding, those lips would be like everything else that was a part of Sherlock: absorbing.  
   
Sherlock cleared his throat.  
   
“Yes. Hm. I think that’s the right combination, or as close as it might possibly get to be. But you’re the expert.”  
   
“I am. And I agree”, John said, feigning a confidence he wasn’t quite feeling at the moment. He considered Sherlock’s eyes for a little while, and turned away. Sherlock slowly dragged his hand away.  
   
John grabbed the tube of the two blue paintings and looked around, trying to find the palette. Sherlock giggled. John turned to look at him, a small frown in his forehead, that was frankly an addictive sound. One John wanted to listen to more commonly.  
   
“You’re not using my palette”, Sherlock said, shaking his head.  
   
John rolled his eyes. “I didn’t want to, anyway. Must be quite a boring palette.”  
   
“Excuse me?”, Sherlock said, raising an eyebrow.  
   
“You started it”, John said, with a shrug, unable to stop the smile that was involuntarily drawing itself on his lips. Sherlock apparently was unable to stop his own as well. “I still need a place to mix the colors. Mind if I use your table?”, he said jokingly.  
   
“Does it look as if I’d actually mind, John?”  
   
John’s smile grew wider.  
   
“I actually do mind”, Sherlock replied. “Which is why I got you a palette”, he said as he walked and stopped in front of the canvas, taking something from behind the tripod stand.  
   
“Oh?”, John said, feeling warm. “Thank you”. He considered for a time and then he whispered, “you were planning on doing this”.  
   
Sherlock walked towards him and used the same tone to reply, “I wanted to see you paint.”  
   
John’s heart raced in a way he could only explain as a pre-heart stroke, which wasn’t a very common thing among people his age, but not something that was unheard of. 32 was a very risky age, after all. He swallowed and told himself to stop being stupid and immature. He was 32 after all.  
   
There was an intimate silence around them. Far too intimate. Intimate like the kind of silence after sharing a deep and important secret, or intimate as when couples stared at each other after saying ‘I love you’, when they were both too overcome with feelings and utter love to express it aloud. It was intimate in a way John had never felt before, and he was surprised, to say the least.  
   
Sherlock didn’t take his eyes off him.  
   
The silence grew for too long.  
   
“I wanted to see what all the fuss was about”, Sherlock added.  
   
John laughed, releasing a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.  
   
He walked towards Sherlock, his eyes fixed on him, and he took the palette from his hands. “Well, Sherlock Holmes, prepared to be marveled. Not everyone has the pleasure of witnessing John Watson at work.”  
   
“I am certainly endeavoring to be marveled, John Watson”, Sherlock said in such a deep tone that it sounded like a purr.  
   
John nodded, unable to think of a word to say. He closed his eyes for a second, telling himself it wasn’t the moment to be turned on by Sherlock’s voice.  
   
He took a brush from the set of brushes Sherlock had in his desk. He grabbed the turpentine and the palette and poured just a drop of each of the colors. “I believe that a color is not a color”, he started.  
   
Sherlock looked at him with a ‘what you just said is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard’ face but John didn’t even realize he was making that face, for he was far too absorbed in his palette.  
   
“A color is not _just_ a color. Every color has a myriad of colors within itself. A yellow is not just a yellow, a yellow is also the starting point of an orange, it can add vibrancy to another color, but it can tone it down. Each color is a thousand possibilities”, he continued. He talked as if he didn’t even know he was doing it, as if that was a speech he’d known and repeated his whole life. Sherlock stared at him with his mouth agape.  
   
“You know”, John continued as he started painting the iris of his eye, “Autumn Orange is not actually called Autumn Orange”, he said distractedly.  
   
“Yes, well, I gathered that much.”  
   
“It’s a mix between Cadmium Yellow Light and Cadmium Yellow, with a touch of Yellow Ochre. But romantics prefer calling it Autumn Orange.”  
   
“You being one of them, of course.”  
   
“Of course”, John said with a smile.  
   
He was slow on the canvas. His hand wasn’t shaking. He moved his hand surely, with strokes that were too short and loaded with paint, so each stroke had its own texture, its own shape, its own intention. It was kind of fascinating. Sherlock couldn’t help but associate it with Van Gogh’s painting at the Tate, and he could really tell that John based his whole technique on post-impressionists, but he was giving it a complete shift to it: this wasn’t about landscapes any longer, this was about the human body, he was turning the human body into a colorful work of art.  
   
The thing Sherlock hated the most about the avant-gardes (their lack of details and their need to detach from reality) took a whole new meaning with John Watson: reality and colors and textures and shapes and all those elements from impressionism and surrealism were mixed there, with a _real_ depiction of a human eye.  
   
Fascinating.  
   
“-the thing is that Ivory black takes far too long to dry and I tend to be very careful when I use white or black in my paintings because they take the vivacity out of the colors they’re mixed with. So I only use them when it’s strictly necessary-”  
   
He was almost done with the iris and it looked so real and alive it was surprising. At some point, while Sherlock was closed up in his own mind, John had mixed some darker shade of blue which wasn’t particularly black in order to add the details of the irises -the lines that created patterns around the edge of it- and it had given a huge touch of reality to the figure. Sherlock couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  
   
“-titanium white, which is a pretty neutral shade of white, see?”, he said as he walked towards the box and grabbed the paint labeled as Titanium White. “Pretty sure this is the romanticized name of it, but works for me”, he said, good-heartedly.  
   
Sherlock couldn’t turn to look at John, he focused on the painting and stared at it, taking in every single detail, it was beautiful.  
   
“I’m using a larger brush to paint the- what did you call it? Never mind, the white part, for obvious reasons”, he said as he stood in front of the canvas again.  
   
Sherlock blinked.  
   
“Prussian blue is the base to achieve these colors, you know?”  
   
Sherlock shook his head.  
   
“And I’m adding just a little bit, _just a little bit_ ”, he said softly, emphasizing on the ‘little bit’, “of light gray to the white, to texturize it more.”  
   
John finished adding the white, and outlined the edges with a sharp and thin brush -not with ivory black, apparently-. Sherlock didn’t listen to most of what he said, and instead spent most of the time wondering how it was possible that John could make this kind of work of art. He was amazed, to say the least. He would never admit it, of course.  
   
“-and, we’re done. I think.”  
   
It was beautiful. It was as if the eye had come to life. A small element of impressionism there, but sticking to reality. Only John Watson could do something like that. He was brilliant. Why he didn’t have any more paintings at the Tate Modern was beyond Sherlock.  
   
“Sherlock?”  
   
Sherlock opened his mouth but couldn’t say a thing. He hated when his brain short circuited like that, and he was unable to produce a sound. John was staring at him anxiously. “Sherlock?”, he said again, his nerves flattening a little.  
   
How could he even put it into words? How could he express how much he admired John Watson and how much he hated the fact that he admired John Watson, because he had proven him _wrong?_ It was impossible. There weren’t enough words to express that. Perhaps there were enough colors to express it, but John was the expert on it.  
   
“This is getting a bit scary, you know?”  
   
Sherlock had asked him minutes ago to show him the universe of possibilities, but he really didn’t mean it about the colors. John was a universe of possibilities himself, and Sherlock was eager to know him, to explore him, to become an expert in everything that was related to John Watson.  
   
 _You’re brilliant._  
  
 _This is beautiful._  
  
 _You’ve changed everything, John._  
  
 _You’re perfect._  
  
“Sherlock?”  
   
Sherlock forced himself out of his stupor and blinked. “Yes?”  
   
“You didn’t like it, did you?”, John asked, sounding a bit disappointed.  
   
   
 _How do I explain that you have the unfortunate, thrilling, hateful, brilliant effect of absolutely turning my life around every time I see a painting made by you?_  
  
“I- No. It’s. It’s good. Appropriate.”  
   
“Appropriate?”, John asked, confused.  
   
“I mean, the colors are appropriate. The blue is just about right and there isn’t a huge spur of colors, as is your MO.”  
   
John looked around, “thanks, I guess”, he said, but his voice betrayed the slight sadness with which he said it.  
   
“You are better than you think you are, John”, Sherlock said desperately, because John _needed_ to know that.  
   
“Yeah the problem is that I’m not sure, Sherlock. And I really think I’m not.”  
   
“I do think so. And I don’t say that to a big amount of people.”  
   
John smiled, “I know you don’t.”  
   
“Tea?”, Sherlock said in an effort to make John feel better.  
   
“Please”, John replied, holding the smile.  
   
He walked towards the kitchen and put the kettle on.  
   
“See, the problem is that, no matter how hard I try, I think I won’t ever achieve what I achieved before Afghanistan. I’ll never be the same artist, I’ll never have the same talent, the same spirit. It terrifies me that I might not be who I used to be.”  
   
“Was it really that good?”  
   
“I used to think it was. But it wasn’t. Sherlock I got so bored of my own life that I took that radical decision. I romanticize it now but back then, I was about to lose my mind. I never asked for that kind of life”.  
   
Sherlock could listen to John’s footsteps as they approached him.  
   
“The attention, the fake friendships, the elite who adored you one day and hated you the other, it was unbearable, Sherlock.”  
   
“I know that feeling, John. I got bored and I ran away too, I found shelter in something easier to acquire than a recruitment to Afghanistan, though.”  
   
John didn’t reply.  
   
John didn’t reply.  
   
John didn’t reply.  
   
“John?”, Sherlock asked, when John grew silent for far too long. “John?”, he said, turning to look at him.  
   
 _Oh no._  
   
“That’s- that’s not- I mean, that’s- hm. A work in progress.” That was not what he meant to say at all.  
   
“Is that-?”, John asked as he stared fixedly at the painting Sherlock had finished recently. The one with their hands joined together.  
   
“No.”  
   
“Is that my hand?”, John asked softly as he pointed towards the painting.  
   
Sherlock sighed and closed his eyes. It was only obvious that that _was_ John’s hand. He cursed his goddamned need to stick to detail, if he were an impressionist he wouldn’t be having this problem. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”  
   
“Is it?”, John asked, his gaze fixed on the canvas.  
   
“Yes”, Sherlock said, his eyes still closed, waiting to listen to the sound of John’s footsteps leaving the flat. It was the only logical outcome.  
   
It didn’t happen.  
   
“Is the other one- _yours?_ ”, he asked, confusion tinging his voice.  
   
“Um- well, erm- yes.”  
   
“Oh.”  
   
Sherlock opened his eyes. John kept his eyes on the painting, a small, soft smiled drawing in his face.  
   
Yeah of course, he’d be laughing at himself too.  
   
He had messed it all up. All of it. He had fucked it. He had ruined everything him and John had slowly built.  
   
That was it.  
   
John turned to look at him. The smile was gone from his face, his expression unreadable.  
   
He walked towards him.  
   
One, two steps.  
   
Three, four.  
   
He was considerably closer.  
                                                    
Too close.  
   
“Why?”, he asked. His voice was a whisper.  
   
“Because-”  
   
 _Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for a single moment ever since I first saw that painting that changed it all. Because you have the magical effect of coming and ruining everything with just a blink. I had promised I’d remain married to my work and you ruined it with a blink. I had promised I’d walk away and you ruined it with a smile. I had promised I wouldn’t get involved and you ruined it with your words. I had promised I would remain faithful to neoclassicism and you ruined it with your colors. And now it’s too late._  
  
“Because.”  
   
John nodded. “Because”, he repeated.  
   
Sherlock kept looking down.  
   
“Remember that time I drew a hand?”, John asked.  
   
“Of course I do.”  
   
“It was yours.”  
   
“Yes, I know.”  
   
“I did it because, too.”  
   
Sherlock lost track of that conversation at some point because he _saw_ how John’s shoes took another step towards him and another and another.  
   
And he felt John’s breath over his cheek.  
   
 _Look at him look at him look at him._  
  
He looked up. John’s face was millimeters away from him.  
   
He couldn’t help looking at John’s lips. Soft pink. “Because”, John whispered again.  
   
Taking a deep breath, John closed the distance between them and kissed him.  
   
 _Once, when Sherlock was seven years old and played pirates with Redbeard, he threw himself off a cliff._  
  
 _It was for a reason, of course. Redbeard’s hat had been swallowed by the falls and so he chased him, because he was the pirate hero._  
  
 _As he fell, it was as if time stopped. He couldn’t feel. He couldn’t think. He had stayed suspended in time and space, at some point between the cliff and the river._  
  
 _He didn’t move._  
  
 _And he had never felt more alive._  
  
John pulled apart and time moved again. Sherlock had only felt that sensation once. Once before.  
   
John smiled softly at him.  
   
He couldn’t think.  
   
Nothing.  
   
His brain had unplugged itself.  
   
Of course, he was going crazy.  
   
Or he had taken a shitload of drug.  
   
Had he?  
   
He couldn’t remember, his brain didn’t want to respond.  
   
He had been suspended in time and space for a second. Nothing moved. Nothing happened. Anything. It was all empty. And yet it all existed there.  
   
A whole universe of possibilities across time and space.  
   
John had kissed him.  
   
He had. Hadn’t he?  
   
Or perhaps he just overdosed and this was his hallucination.  
   
John had kissed him.  
   
He blinked.  
   
Kissed him.  
   
John was now a couple of inches away from him, looking around anxiously. “Jesus, I’m sorry. I just- I couldn’t help myself, I’m so sorry. I’ve ruined everything.”  
   
 _No,_ he wanted to say.  
  
 _You just fixed everything,_ he wanted to say.  
   
 _Do it again,_ he wanted to say.  
   
He couldn’t.  
   
“Shit. I’m so sorry. I’m going to- yeah. I’ll go. Fuck. I’m sorry.”  
   
 _Don’t._  
  
His brain woke up. Sluggishly, but it did.  
   
He took two steps towards John and kissed him back.  
   
He could hear John’s intake of breath before their lips joined. John kissed him back. It was a sweet, soft touch of their lips.  
   
John ran a hand through Sherlock’s face, touching him softly.  
   
Sherlock broke apart a second later, wondering what on earth had just happened.  
   
“You kissed me”, John said, smiling like an idiot.  
   
“You did it first”, Sherlock replied, defensively.  
   
“Yeah, no, I just. I thought for a second that I had made the worst mistake of my life.”  
   
“You didn’t.”  
   
“I didn’t”, John told himself, his smile widening.  
   
“Perhaps you could not do it again.”  
   
“Perhaps.”  
   
“Just because.”  
   
“Just because.”  
   
John leaned in and kissed him again. Sherlock closed his eyes as he allowed himself to give in to the overwhelming sensation that was spreading through his body.  
   
As he closed his eyes, the only thing he could possibly think about was that John’s lips tasted like Orange Autumn.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! I'm SO so sorry this little one took so long, life has been very busy BUT I hope you enjoy this chapter (eyes out for the rating!), thank you so much for your support and for loving this fic, it means the world to me <3

_You aspire to have your perception represented on the canvas. It’s simple. Synchronize your brain with your hand, let it be your guide. Your eyes, your eyes are the element which adds the reality. Everything you see, everything you look at, copy it. Be to most faithful representative of the world around you, but with a twist to it, give that world the beauty humanity has taken from it. Give the human body the beauty humanity has taken from it. Make each shape, each silhouette, each contour a work of beauty. Remind the world that it still exists. Remind the world that there is something dead, forsaken and forgotten somewhere, and that if you paint it, it will come back to life. Remind the world that there’s still a purpose to life, and that art is the only way to achieve it._  
   
Sherlock knew that speech ever since his art professor told it to him, twelve years ago.  
   
He hadn’t forgotten a word. Not a single one. He hadn’t forgotten the dictation the accent the tempo the enunciation. Because that speech had changed his life.  
   
For the worst.  
   
He couldn’t find the beauty. No matter how much he tried. There was something magical and wonderful about the human body, but there was no beauty on it. It was complex and intriguing, but it wasn’t beautiful.  
   
Lest of all his human body.  
   
He had tried making of the world a thing of beauty.  
   
It didn’t work.  
   
He couldn’t find it. He couldn’t see it. He looked for perfection, not for beauty. The thing was that the world he lived in was a place he didn’t feel happy about, and so he reproduced it as faithfully as possible.  
   
But there was no beauty in his kind of world.  
   
So he tried with drugs.  
   
And he met the most despicable, grimiest corners of the world. The most despicable, grimiest corners of the human body.  
   
There was no beauty in that world either.  
   
This world was lonely and sad. And yet surprisingly magnetic. Dragging Sherlock in. Giving him that desperate itch to pain, to discover, to dig further.  
   
Perhaps he could find beauty somewhere along the way.  
   
He was dead, forsaken and forgotten. He just hoped that something would bring him back to life.  
   
******  
   
John smiled into the kiss. He smiled as he pressed his lips harder against Sherlock’s. He wrapped his hands around the nape of his neck, dragging him in.  
   
Sherlock smiled back. At that point, his brain wasn’t even thinking anymore. Not that it had thought too much during the last couple of minutes, but he had simply stopped trying. Why forcing it?  
   
They crashed their bodies together, both of them desperate to _feel_ one another. Sherlock couldn’t explain it, couldn’t put it into words. He had always been attracted to the human body, but it was a need to reproduce it, to explore it solely for the purpose of art.  
   
But when it came to John, there was a need beyond the mental, beyond the artistic, even beyond the physical.  
   
If Sherlock believed in those things, he would even dare to call it a _metaphysical_ need for John Watson.  
   
Too bad he didn’t believe in those things.  
   
John’s body was pressed against his. John gasped into their touch. He caressed the back of Sherlock’s neck. So softly, so thoroughly, as if they had all the time in the world.  
   
They broke apart for a second, both needing -albeit reluctantly- to recover their breaths.     
  
John looked at him with something akin to wonder.  
   
Sherlock simply looked at him.  
   
John smiled as he panted.  
   
Sherlock smiled back.  
   
Their lips met once again. It was impossible not to. They were magnetic forces dragging each other in with a desperate need.  
   
Their bodies crashed once again and Sherlock felt an acute desire to melt into John Watson.  
   
Yes, of course he knew that was physically impossible.  
   
But perhaps it could be metaphysically possible.  
   
And maybe he could start believing in metaphysics, if it meant he’d be able to merge himself with John.  
   
“John”, he whispered.  
   
John planted kisses along Sherlock’s jaw, soft, feather-like kisses which sent shivers down Sherlock’s spine.  
   
Then he kissed his earlobe.  
   
“Tell me what you want”, he whispered into Sherlock’s ear.  
   
 _I want to find beauty. I want to look at the world and see that there’s not just loneliness and gray around. I want to give hope to someone else. I want to be brought back to life._  
  
“You”, was all he managed to produce.  
   
Sherlock could feel the shape of John’s smile as it pressed against his earlobe. _Soft, tender lips. Slightly chapped and dehydrated, sunburnt. A concave shape which is bigger on the right side that on the left side._  
  
He could store it in his mind palace. He knew that information would be useful later.  
   
John licked at his earlobe.  
   
And Sherlock’s thoughts vanished.  
   
He pushed his hips against John’s, so he could feel his hardness. He didn’t stop himself. Didn’t stop to think about it. He _needed_ John. Mentally physically artistically metaphysically. He needed him.  
   
John gasped and pressed his hips against Sherlock’s.  
   
Sherlock closed his eyes. The sensations were invading him, numbing him, absorbing him. It was impossible to resist.  
   
“John”, he said once again. “ _Please_ ”.  
   
“Yes. Yes. Yes”, John replied.  
   
******  
   
They moved clumsily. Had it been any other situation, it would have been funny, but they were unable to break apart. They couldn’t.  
   
Sherlock guided him towards his room. John could only follow.  
   
As he did, he touched Sherlock’s arms. He caressed them up and down. Even through the layers of clothes it was possible to trace the outlines of his muscles. Firm and strong even though he was impossibly skinny.  
   
Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered since when he had started paying attention to the details of the human body.  
   
Well, that was something he could only thank Sherlock Holmes for.  
   
They landed on Sherlock’s bed and fell down immediately, their lips unable to break apart. Sherlock threw a soft ‘oof’ as John fell on top of him. “Sorry”, John said with a giggle.  
   
Sherlock sat up and chased his lips again.  
   
John’s fingertips touched the fabric of Sherlock’s shirt as it clung to his arms once again. He dragged his fingers up and touched his shoulders, and then he felt the collarbones beneath it.  
   
He broke their kiss and stared at Sherlock’s neck fixedly. There was a point right where his neck and his torso met and he felt the desperate need to touch it. He caressed it as Sherlock could do nothing but stare into John’s lust-filled eyes.  
   
His skin was so soft. So private so mysterious so apparently unreachable. Yet there he was, allowing him in, tearing his barriers down.  
   
John unbuttoned the first button in the shirt.  
   
Sherlock leaned his forehead against John’s shoulder.  
   
He touched the skin there.  
   
Soft.  
   
Then the second.  
   
Then he touched.  
   
Then the third.  
   
And he touched.  
   
And so he kept on until he discovered, centimeter by centimeter, Sherlock’s torso and stomach.   
   
“You’re beautiful”, he whispered with a smile.  
   
“I’m really not.”  
   
“You really are”, John said as he met his eyes.  
   
Sherlock simply stared at him, unable to produce any other sound.  
   
He started unbuttoning John’s shirt.  
   
John closed his eyes.  
   
 _I think of the body as some kind of musical composition._ Sherlock had told him during their first class.  
   
There were crescendos and adagios and opus drawing themselves along Sherlock’s body, forming a symphony.  
   
John wondered what he saw as he looked at his body. He wondered if Sherlock could see a musical composition as scarred and marred and broken as his own body. He wondered if Sherlock could find perfection somewhere along that place.  
   
Sherlock took the shirt off John’s shoulders.  
   
John shook his head. He knew Sherlock would be disappointed as soon as he looked at the horrible scar on his shoulder, the scar which kept anchoring him to the past, reminding him that life couldn’t be the same, would never be the same as much as he tried.  
   
The scar which represented the fall of each and every single one of the things he’d dreamt of his whole life.  
   
Sherlock stared at it for a long time. He looked at it fixedly.  
   
John struggled hard not to cover himself up.  
   
Sherlock simply looked at it.  
   
John swallowed.  
   
Finally, just as John felt like shoving Sherlock and running away, Sherlock leaned closer and pressed a soft kiss to the scar.  
   
The skin was sensitive and sore, and so he felt as that soft kiss penetrated into every pore of his body, as if that kiss had managed to merge itself with his skin and his body and his muscles and his blood.  
   
And God, Sherlock was perfect.  
   
Sherlock looked at him with soft eyes before taking the shirt and using it to cover John’s shoulders once again.  
   
John didn’t say a single word. He couldn’t find them. He was too overwhelmed with-  
   
With what?  
   
Orange Autumn?  
   
No, it was even deeper than that.  
   
It was unnamable.  
   
Slowly, he took Sherlock’s hand and dragged it towards his trousers. Sherlock licked his lips eagerly.  
   
“Please”, John whispered.  
   
Sherlock nodded.  
   
They leant closer and their noses touched, caressing one another before Sherlock pulled in and made their lips meet again.  
   
As they kissed, Sherlock opened John’s trousers and unzipped them. John gasped and Sherlock smiled into the kiss.  
   
“Eager, aren’t we?”, he said between kisses.  
   
John giggled. “Shut up.”  
   
Sherlock grasped John’s cock between his trousers.  
   
John’s eyes drew themselves closed almost without intending to. As soon as he did, his brain started drawing pictures on his own, and he saw _colors,_ colors everywhere, as if he was seeing Van Gogh’s spirals painting themselves by sheer force of love -and lust- alone.  
   
It was magical.  
   
John had never felt in such a way. Never even imagined it could be possible.  
   
Sherlock Holmes, always the impossible.  
   
He dragged a deep breath as Sherlock pulled his trousers down, caressing his skin over the fabric of his pants.  
   
Sherlock looked at him enquiringly once again. His face and his lips were deliciously blushed and John smiled without even realizing he was, because he looked absolutely stunning. He raised an eyebrow, staring at John, and John nodded. As soon as he did, Sherlock pulled his pants down.  
   
John bit his lips. He looked down to see Sherlock’s fingers as they hovered in the air, uncertain what to do. His long, thin fingers. God, those fingers.  
   
He took Sherlock’s hand without thinking, Sherlock looked transfixed as John brought his fingertips to his lips and kissed them softly, a feather-like touch that only deepened Sherlock’s blush.  
   
Sherlock’s fingers remained over John’s lips, touching the soft skin, leaning closer as if it was a study on human lips and their shapes, on human lips and their colors, on human lips and their textures.  
   
John smiled and Sherlock traced the smile with his fingertips, smiling himself.  
   
The tip of his tongue darted out just slightly, but enough to wet Sherlock’s fingertips, who closed his eyes to the sensation, his breathing growing shallow. John could almost feel the spirals of Sherlock’s fingertips, and he held onto the texture, while his mind applied just a little bit more of color to the shapes drawing inside his brain.  
   
Sherlock gasped.  
   
He closed his eyes and drew his fingers away.  
   
“May I?”, he asked, his voice hoarse.  
   
John simply nodded. Sherlock dragged his hand down, until it slowly fell over John’s cock. John closed his eyes as Sherlock’s fist closed over him, feeling overcome by the whole situation.  
   
And he waited.  
   
And he waited.  
   
And nothing happened.  
   
He opened his eyes again. Sherlock was looking around hesitantly.  
   
“Is there-”, he cleared his throat, “is there something wrong?”, he asked breathlessly.  
   
Sherlock sighed as he shook his head. “Nothing. Just-”, he looked up to meet John’s eyes. “I’ve never done this before. With anyone.”  
   
John blinked. “What?”, he asked unbelievably.  
   
“No.”  
   
“Never?”  
   
“Never. Is it so hard to believe?”, Sherlock asked, looking slightly annoyed.  
   
John chuckled. “No! It’s just- have you looked at yourself?”  
   
Sherlock stared at him in confusion.  
   
“You’re- Jesus, Sherlock. You’re-”, he couldn’t find the words, Sherlock looked at him expectantly. “You’re like a symphony”, he whispered.  
   
“What?”, Sherlock said.  
   
“A musical composition which fits perfectly and harmonically. That’s what you are”, he said into his ear.  
   
Sherlock closed his eyes. He stood still, not daring to say a word. He simply moved forward and kissed John’s neck. He grabbed John’s hand and guided it towards his cock.  
   
John looked at him, wondering. Sherlock simply nodded. He opened his trousers with an urgency he hadn’t felt up until that point. Sherlock merely threw his head to lean on John’s shoulder.  
   
Unconsciously, Sherlock’s hand started moving on its own as it closed over John’s cock. Up and down. Up and down.  
   
“Sh- Sherlock!”, John whispered, unable to hold himself.  
   
Sherlock sped up, moving on mere instinct as John wrapped his hand over his cock and started tugging the foreskin.  
   
There was silence. An intimate kind of silence. A kind of silence which was loud enough to fill the whole room and cover them both.  
   
The only noise was their gasps and the rustle of fabric against skin.  
   
John was seeing colors in front of him. Was hearing them. Was almost able to touch them. They were soft and vibrant and they were so present and they were _there_ amidst them both. There was yellow and there was blue and yes, there was autumn orange and a twinge of green and is that Tiffany Blue or Cerulean or Verdigris? He couldn’t tell, he only knew that was the color of Sherlock’s eyes and there was some Army Force Blue there and lots of-  
   
 _Red. Merlot. Garnet. Crimson. Wine. Currant. Mahogany. Ruby. Brick. Blush. Scarlet._  
   
They both came surprisingly -and embarrassingly- fast. John whispered Sherlock’s name as he guided him through. Sherlock simply kept his lips on John’s neck, as if he was physically unable to draw himself apart.  
   
They couldn’t. They were unable to.  
   
They were both breathing hard by the time the world started turning around again, their senses slowly coming back to them.  
   
Sherlock looked at him, looking slightly nervous. He looked beautiful. His hair sticking to his forehead, small drops of sweat falling down his face.  
   
John could only smile.  
   
Sherlock looked confused for a second before he blinked and smiled back at him. Then, awkwardly and crazily and unexplainably, they broke down in laughter.  
   
John couldn’t explain, he felt his own brain freeing himself from all restraints, as if Afghanistan and the emptiness and his scar had only been a dream he had woken up from and used for a painting. He felt as if the gunpowder and the war and the sand and _Anguish_ were nothing but a distant nightmare.  
   
Now he only saw colors.  
   
And symphonies.  
   
And Sherlock’s silhouette somewhere in the middle.  
   
“Was it-?”, Sherlock whispered hesitantly.  
   
“Shhh”, he said softly with a smile.  
   
Sherlock fell on the bed, looking exhausted.  
   
John stood up, zipping himself up and going to the bathroom, grabbing a towel and returning to Sherlock’s bedroom. Sherlock’s eyes were closed, a small smile on his lips.  
   
He softly and slowly wiped him. Sherlock’s smile widening. “Thank you”, he whispered.  
   
“Anytime”, John said as he placed a kiss on his cheek.  
   
He threw the towel to the floor and stood awkwardly, looking around the room, uncertain of what he should do. Sherlock finally opened his eyes and stared at him. “What are you waiting for?”, he asked John as he moved aside and threw the duvet aside, invitingly.  
   
John laughed. “Thank God!”, he said and Sherlock laughed too.  
   
He climbed under the covers and moved closer to Sherlock, a need to feel the warmth of his skin, the scent of his hair.  
   
Sherlock moved against him, and grabbed one his hands, which he used to wrap around him.  
   
John kissed him on the nape of his neck. “Thank you”, he said.  
   
“Goodnight, John.”  
   
“Goodnight, Sherlock.”  
   
He felt sleep dragging him in. No colors, no sounds. Nothing. Just a strange kind of peace. A kind of peace he hadn’t felt in a long long time. With a brush, a yellow oil and a white canvas.  
   
There were no dreams of Afghanistan. No dreams of scars. No dreams of loss.  
   
Only Sherlock’s scent filling his senses.  
   
And oh god, that was more than enough, more than he could have ever asked for.  



	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick update because you are all so wonderful and adorable and I can't thank you enough for all the love this little one has received! Enjoy and pls keep commenting, your comments are my yellow stars on the ceiling (you'll understand when you read the chapter)! ;)

Sherlock saw stars.  
   
Yes, that silly quote that he would only attribute to romantics such as Van Gogh or John, and which sounded terribly stupid and out-of-character coming from him, actually applied perfectly to the situation.  
   
He couldn’t explain it, couldn’t find any logical reason, any explanation as of how on earth that was true, but it was.  
   
Perhaps that was what it took to make him believe in the existence of metaphysics. He was certain there were no stars in the ceiling of his room, so the only logical outcome was that there was something beyond the physical, beyond the tangible, and he was stuck halfway amidst the dream and the reality.  
   
It was as if the Starry Night had suddenly portrayed itself in his bedroom. Spirals and color and so much yellow and a source of light which looked like the moon but also like the sun and it was too much, too much.  
   
And he came.  
   
He was overwhelmed.  
   
When the world started turning around again (in spirals), he realized his lips were in John’s neck. _Soft to touch, creases around the middle, cold._  
   
John looked up to him and they smiled at each other. It was as if a burden had been taken off his back, as if all the walls that were built around them had collapsed one by one, brick by brick, and there was nothing but the two of them and this cocoon of intimacy which was painted in yellow and blue and white.  
   
He had to stop thinking that, he was good at bodies, not at colors.  
   
But everything looked strangely…colorful at the moment. It was unavoidable. It looked…beautiful.  
   
Beautiful? Really?  
   
It seemed impossible, but it was true.  
   
“Was it-?”, he asked before he even realized, he bit his tongue as soon as he did. Stupid.  
   
“Shhh”, John said with a smile. Brilliant John. Beautiful John. Yellow John.  
   
He sighed. He blinked and John was gone. Where had he gone off to? He hadn’t even realized, had been too enticed into the colors and the shapes and the spirals and the brushstrokes and the light, the light, the stars. Had John left? He couldn’t have, he couldn’t, if he had the stars would disappear and there would be nothing but a hue of ivory black surrounding his flat.  
   
Now he was talking like a complete idiot.  
   
   
He dragged a deep breath.  
   
John came back. He had not left. A rush of relief sped through his whole body. He listened to the ruffle of skin against ground, when had John ended up barefoot? He felt as John wiped him, the softest of touches, and he was speechless at the deep and intense feeling of John’s care.  
   
“Thank you”, he whispered. There was silence but the world kept spinning into spirals.  
   
“Anytime”, John replied.  
   
They tucked into bed. He was exhausted. He felt as if he had been placed into that moment when the body and the mind want to unplug themselves from the rest of the universe. The world was quiet. He used to hate it, used to hate the stagnation, but with John by his side quietness was a gift.  
   
The brain unplugged. The body followed.  
   
Except for a small part of his parietal lobe, that small part which controlled the pain and the touch. But that for now only sensed the touch.   
   
John’s hand wrapped with his own. John’s arm over his abdomen. Warm and soft and weak and strong.  
   
John’s lips on the back of his neck. Feather-like touch. A reassurance.  
   
He smiled into his pillow.  
   
Warmth in his back. No pain.  
   
Stillness. No stagnation.  
   
Tenderness. No rejection.  
   
John. Light. Yellow. Spirals.  
   
“Goodnight, John”, he whispered.  
   
He fell asleep within seconds.  
   
***  
   
He opened his eyes. The ceiling was no longer yellow and light blue and dark blue and white, it was just white.  
   
It looked terribly dull.  
   
It was cold around him. Suddenly, his brain caught up with what had happened the night before and he sat up in a rush, looking around.  
   
John wasn’t there.  
   
Titanium white and ivory black.  
   
He sighed and collapsed against the pillows. It was only logical, now that he thought about it. Of course John would want to spare himself from awkward talks and morning kisses, it was fine.  
   
It was perfectly fine. He was not disappointed, not at all.  
   
His parietal lobe no longer registered the touch, for there was no touch to register.  
   
He closed his eyes. This was stupid. He couldn’t grow attached to _people._ The only thing he was attached to were his paintings, and even those he had to let go, whenever he sold them. He had to stop those stupid feelings for John, and learn how to let him go, it would make everything more bearable.  
   
John certainly knew how to go, anyway.  
   
Fine, perhaps he’d created senseless illusions over the possibility of John falling in love with him, and how their lives would be and how many paintings they’d make and how they’d help and save each other and-  
   
That was all they were, illusions. He had acted illogically by allowing those illusions into his brain and by nurturing them.  
   
He deserved this.  
   
A loud clank resounded in the kitchen, followed by a muffled “shit!”  
   
Sherlock laughed immediately. It was illogical impossible improbable. John hadn’t left. John was still at Baker Street. John had had sex with him, had slept with him, had kissed him goodnight and had _stayed._  
   
He raised from bed, he was still wearing the clothes from last night and they were rumpled but he couldn’t care less.  
   
He walked out of his room.  
   
“John?”, he asked as he walked towards the kitchen.  
   
John looked slightly embarrassed when Sherlock walked into the kitchen. “Did I wake you?”, he said, not turning to look at him.  
   
“Yes. Well, the noise of the dishes did”, Sherlock lied.  
   
John smiled a bit. “Fuck. I wanted to surprise you.”  
   
“Huh?”  
   
“I wanted to wake you with the scent of beans and toast, not with the clatter of china almost breaking”.  
   
“What?”, Sherlock asked, his brain not quite catching up with him.  
   
“Breakfast in bed, thought it’d be a nice way to wake you up”, John said, finally turning to look at him.  
   
As he did, a smile drew itself on his lips. He stared at Sherlock for a long moment before he cleared his throat and said “morning”.  
   
Sherlock couldn’t reply, his brain was frozen. John Watson had slept with him throughout the night, had kissed him, was making him breakfast. And it was a _fact,_ not an illusion, not a fiction created by his mind. A fact.  
   
He was too distracted to notice John walking towards him and kissing him. He gasped in surprise. He would never get used to John’s kisses, he knew that already. He was in too deep.  
   
This kiss was somehow different to the ones they’d shared the night before. There was no heat behind it, no desperation, just a sense of affection that couldn’t be put into words (perhaps into colors? He’d have to ask John later if it was possible, he was the expert after all), they melted into the kiss.  
   
_The curves of your lips rewrite history._  
  
He’d read that quote once. He’d found it absolutely absurd. Lacking any sense or logic. As always, the problem with the romantics.  
   
Yet, right at that moment, he felt that the curve of John’s lips could create monuments, conquer territories, and could even manage to do the impossible: heal Sherlock.  
   
_The curves of your lips rewrite my history,_ he wanted to say.  
   
He didn’t.  
   
They broke the kiss, John with a smile plastered around his face. Sherlock couldn’t help but do the same.  
   
John dragged a deep breath and turned his back to him once again, “take a seat, breakfast is almost ready”.  
   
He sat, unable to wipe off that silly smile off his face (and he really didn’t want to). John came with two plates and two mugs and placed them over the table. Only then did Sherlock realize how hungry he was.  
   
“Have-”, John started to talk with a mouth full, then he swallowed, “have you ever felt an _itch_ to paint?”, he asked curiously.  
   
Sherlock frowned. “An itch?”  
   
John nodded, “you know, like a deep need to grab a brush, to merge with the painting, and to do it until your shoulders hurt and your hands stop moving on their own accord?”  
   
“Ah. Yes, quite commonly. Sometimes the image just appears in my head and I have to take the brush and express everything that’s in my brain immediately, lest I forget it.”  
   
“The image of a naked body?”, John asked, raising an eyebrow and taking a bite off his toast.  
   
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you how I see the human body, it is merely a musical composition, an artistic piece to be admired. Whenever a human body appears in my brain it’s like when there’s a song you’re caught up on and whose lyrics and melody you can’t let go.”  
   
John nodded, thoughtfully.  
   
“There’s no pleasure behind it, but for the pleasure grabbing a brush and creating a silhouette brings.”  
   
John looked at him smugly. “No pleasure in the human body at all, then?”  
   
Sherlock stared at him silently for a moment before replying, “no pleasure when I’m _painting_ it.”  
   
John smiled. Sherlock smiled back and bit his lip. God, what was wrong with him? Why was he acting like an ordinary fifteen-year-old boy?  
   
John cleared his throat. “Well, I woke up today with that need. But I have nothing, no pictures nor images in my head, I just feel like I have to grab a brush and let go.”  
   
“Do it”, Sherlock replied immediately.  
   
John bit his lip thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Sherlock. I mean, last night I was able to do it because I just had to choose the colors and paint, but now I have nothing: no clear idea in mind, anything.”  
   
“Is your hand still trembling?”  
   
John smiled and raised his hand so it’d be at Sherlock’s eye level. It was completely steady.  
   
Sherlock smiled back. _I have nothing to do with it. It wasn’t because of me._ He felt the need to remind himself. “Then what’s stopping you?”  
   
“That my mind is empty.”  
   
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Without even thinking about it, he stood up and grabbed John’s hand _soft steady_ to take him towards the ‘painting seat’ as he’d used to call it. In front of him stood the eye from the night before. Sherlock let go of John’s hand, took the painting off and grabbed another white canvas. John stared at him silently. Then he grabbed a brush and showed it to John, as if he was a four-year-old and was painting for the first time in his life.  
   
“Whenever there’s an _itch,_ as you so poetically call it, it means that the inspiration is _there,_ well, by saying inspiration I’m merely using the romantic term you like so much, it means that there’s _something_ in your brain, whether an idea, an image or a concept, something is pushing you to do it, otherwise you’d feel no desire to paint at all. So tell me, what’s in your mind?”  
   
“You”, John replied without hesitation.  
   
Sherlock wanted to smile at how cheesy and yet how absolutely _adorable_ what John had said was, but he cleared his throat and forced himself to carry on. “How very sentimental of you”, he said with a sigh and John laughed, “now materialize it. It is of no help to have an idea if it is situated on cloud nine. Put it to the ground, adorn it, pour water on it, read bedtime stories to it and wait to see it grow.”  
   
John cracked in laughter.  
   
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “I’m completely serious, John.”  
   
John stopped laughing and covered his mouth. “Yes, of course you are. Sorry”, he said bending over and placing a chaste kiss on Sherlock’s lips, a kiss which actually rendered him speechless.  
   
“Hmm”  
   
“Let’s put our little baby to the ground, then”, John said with a smile.  
   
Sherlock handed him the brush but John batted it away, good-naturedly. “Nah. Pencil first.”  
   
Sherlock nodded and handed him the pencil. John took it with strong stable steady reliable firm hands and started drawing silhouettes and shadows and other things Sherlock saw absolutely no shape to.  
   
He stood there, right behind him, biting his tongue to stop himself from doing any harsh comments -but he certainly was thinking them- until John finished and turned to look at him with a smile. “Tada!”, he said as soon as the drawing? -If he called it that- was finished.  
   
Sherlock nodded.  
   
John rolled his eyes, “you can tell me everything that’s in your mind, you know? It’s physically exhausting watching you contain yourself.”  
   
“No”, Sherlock started, “no, not everything that’s in my mind, that’s for sure.”  
   
John laughed. “Come on. Shoot.”  
   
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Alright. What on earth is _that?_ ”, he asked what was on top of his mind.  
   
“Sherlock, you know my style.”  
   
“I know your style but I don’t know in which style to place _that_ ”, he said, pointing at the drawing.  
   
“Are you serious?”, John said with a frown. “It’s a city!”  
   
“A city?”  
   
“Yeah, well, London”, John said rubbing the back of his neck. “Doesn’t it look like it?”  
   
Sherlock tilted his head to the left, “the buildings aren’t straight and the perspective is completely misplaced. How did you expect me to find out what it was?”  
   
John laughed, “I was experimenting a bit with futurism…”  
   
“Well it didn’t work”, Sherlock replied.  
   
John stared at him, speechless. “It didn’t?”, he asked, sounding a bit sad.  
   
“Well, it didn’t work for me, I’m a neoclassicist, John, I love reproducing cities like Athens, not cities like London.”  
   
“Just you wait, I haven’t painted it yet.”  
   
Sherlock stood silent at that, he knew that when it came to John and colors…he was certainly the expert.  
   
John took the palette and the oils and started mixing, but just before he was about to start, he turned to look at Sherlock and softly said, “talk to me.”  
   
“What?”  
   
“I work better when you talk to me.”  
   
“Talk to you? What about?”  
   
John shrugged. “Anything. Anything except what you think about what I’m painting”, he whispered.  
   
Sherlock stood silent for a moment. There was no other noise but that of the brush over the painting, mixing and merging.  
   
“When-”, he cleared his throat, “when I was seven years old I tried to paint a rainbow.”  
   
John raised his eyebrows. “What?”, he asked in surprise.  
   
Sherlock sighed. “Yes. I liked rainbows. I always have. There’s something unusual about the colors in it, isn’t there? Each one of them is perfectly distinguishable, and yet they merge with one another. There’s a small space between one line and the other where they’re a completely different color. You’d said before that a color is not just a color, and in a rainbow there aren’t just seven colors, there are thousands of them, coming together and blending each other harmonically. It’s fascinating.”  
   
John nodded with a smile. “You know what fascinates me the most? That in between the merge of one color and the other there’s a small ray of light creeping through. There’s not only an infinite amount of tones within it, but an infinite amount of light. Beautiful, isn’t it?”, he carried on painting, but Sherlock didn’t focus his attention on it, because he knew he’d be distracted by John’s technique and wouldn’t be able to carry on with his story. He didn’t even know why he was telling the story in the first place, he just felt like doing it.  
   
“Yes I liked that too. I used to-”, he grew quiet for a moment, wondering if he should say it or not. He found out he didn’t matter, it was John he was telling it to. “The first time I walked into a museum I asked my mom what a thing on a painting was, and she told me that it was ‘light’ and I looked at the rainbow and I pointed at it and all I said was that it was ‘light’.”  
   
John smiled softly. He didn’t say anything else.  
   
Sherlock cleared his throat. “I tried to paint it.”  
   
John looked surprised. His brush stopped for a second before he resumed it. “You did?”  
   
“Yes. I tried to, I tried mixing the colors and using white and a bit of black and putting a sky in the background and even tried with other colors, but it never worked. I grew tired of it eventually and by that time I was fed up with using colors.”  
   
“Ah…that explains a lot.”  
   
Sherlock smiled. “Yes. So you see? I was fond of colors once, but it didn’t work at all.”  
   
“Doesn’t mean you should stop being fond of them.”  
   
“But I’m really not. Nor interested on being so.”  
   
“Are you sure?”  
   
“Completely certain.”  
   
“Completely?”  
   
“Completely.”  
   
“Hmm, we’ll see about that”, John said flirtingly as he stood up and wrapped his arms at Sherlock’s neck before kissing him deeply and thoroughly. Sherlock _oofed_ before he reacted and returned the kiss with the same earnest, wrapping his arms around John’s waist. They kissed for a while until Sherlock broke apart and looked at John’s dark eyes. _They aren’t normally dark. I don’t know much about colors but I know enough about human anatomy, and I know you’re aroused. And I want to see that look in your face and that color in your eyes every single day and in every single moment._  
   
He cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, painting?”  
   
John smiled at him. “I’m done.”  
   
“You are?”  
   
John nodded, his eyes wide open and smiling on their own.  
   
“That was- fast.”  
   
“Yes well, you talked for a long while.”  
   
“Did I?”  
   
“Or maybe I just really wanted to kiss you and moved that brush around the canvas as fast as I could.”  
   
“Yes, that does sound more accurate”, Sherlock said, smiling back.  
   
John moved over so Sherlock could take a look at the painting.  
   
He was rendered speechless.  
   
It was…  
   
It was…  
   
It was London. With its fog and its lights and its colors and its diversity. With its sunsets and its sunrise and with the stars looming around and with the shadow of the London eye. It was the city he’d fallen in love with.  
   
It was and at the same time it wasn’t, for it was painted in a thousand different colors which didn’t reflect reality at all, but which described London perfectly somehow. He couldn’t explain it.  
   
Futurism be damned. This was nothing like it. This was John Watson’s style, pure and complete and unusual and novel and brilliant.  
   
John looked at him nervously. “What do you think?”, he asked.  
   
Sherlock stood still, mouth agape, before he realized that a reply was expected from him. He blinked and closed his mouth. “I- just…”  
   
“If you didn’t like it, you can say it, it’s fine, really. I know this isn’t even your style. God, you must be bored out of your mind by looking at it, I’m sorry about that, I just, I thought-”  
   
“It looks like home”, Sherlock interrupted him. He looked at John with certainty and with amusement.  
   
John’s eyes softened, he looked taken aback for a moment. He smiled slightly. “I feel at home”, he replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote of "The curves of your lips rewrite history" is taken from The Picture of Dorian Gray (my god I keep referencing that novel all the time! Damn you and your precious writing, Oscar Wilde!)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG TO UPDATE!!!! I hope you enjoy this chapter, I promise you (I SWEAR) next chapter will be up soon. Thank you so much for following this story, your comments and kudos make me incredibly happy. <3

John left later that day, coming back to his -boring, dull, lifeless, certainly not 221B- flat to get changed. As he stood in the middle of the living room, he looked around and found a completely different flat to the one he’d arrived to when he had finished rehab.  
   
This one was… alive?  
   
That was a really stupid thing to say of something that was not alive. Perhaps the romanticism was catching up to him and that _was_ a scary thought.  
   
Or maybe not. John made it less scary.  
   
This flat was not a catacomb, a memento of forgiveness, of rejection, of addiction, of pain and of loneliness. This flat was no longer empty, felt no longer lifeless, it was filled with an odd sense of excitement, adrenaline, and a touch, just a tiny touch of color.  
   
Expressed in the painting of London that stared at him directly in the face, that spoke to him in so many ways, that expressed the vibrancy and the movement of a city that never stopped, that was his _home._  
  
And so… there was a home in here somehow.  
   
And that was unexpected and wonderful and unbelievable and incredibly- _terrifying._  
  
He had lots of things to think about. Seriously.  
   
First of all, were John and him a couple now? That didn’t make sense, Sherlock was never good at the couple things, but well, he hadn’t actually ever felt something akin to what he felt for John Watson ever before.  
   
If he could put it into words, what he felt was certainly _not_ like one of those neoclassical paintings, with their profound attention to details and to a kind of symmetry that displayed the complexity and the depth of the human body and its relationship to the world that surrounds it. No. He wished it was. What he felt was messy, asymmetrical, almost incomprehensible, filled with awkward shapes and textures, with much-too-rough brushstrokes and too many weird colors. There was no logic behind it, no certain and definite approach, there was no consensus, no balance, no clearness, no order.  
   
And yet, it was absolutely _brilliant._  
  
John Watson’s soul had painted every single corner of Sherlock’s shelter with modernism.  
   
And Sherlock couldn’t be less bothered about it.  
   
But he _should_ be bothered about it, why wasn’t he? This went against his own very foundations and his beliefs.  
   
He had lots of things to think about.  
   
Yet, strangely enough, Sherlock only had one real and genuine thought in mind:  
   
Autumn orange.  
   
It was a nice color, after all.  
   
   
*******  
   
   
John stood with his back against the door, smiling like an idiot.  
   
Like a real, _real_ idiot.  
   
What had happened was…unexpected and unplanned and wonderful.  
   
Of course he’d imagined certain scenarios in which the possibility loomed between them: a soft brush of the hands and a smile would lead somewhere else, but he never imagined it would be actually _possible_ to be with someone as brilliant bright incredible talented smart amazing as Sherlock Holmes.  
   
He opened his eyes and sat in his couch with a sigh. After everything that had happened this place felt even gloomier, more lifeless, as if it lacked the kind of light that Sherlock brought with himself.  
   
It was surprising how suddenly Sherlock had managed to get rid of John’s demons, one by one, kicking them apart, showing him that it _was_ possible to have a life after the war, that it was possible to find color in the middle of the sand and the guns. John still couldn’t understand how he had managed to do that, but he had managed to do it nonetheless.  
   
And now he could paint again, and could see certain beauty in life, albeit a beauty stained by the experience of loss, a used beauty that would never be the same as the beauty of ingenuity.  
   
After he took a shower and got dressed his phone pinged with a new message. John picked it up, eager to see if Sherlock had written anything, but he only found a text from Mike Stamford.  
   
 _Don’t forget. Dinner tomorrow at 8. See you at the usual place -Mike._  
  
John blinked for a moment. Right. There was life beyond 221B. Not a particularly appealing life, but the life he had gotten used to. He had forgotten they had agreed to meet with Mike, somehow his whole world had been reduced to colors and stars and Sherlock somewhere along the way. _See you at 8._ He replied.  
   
*******  
   
He didn’t go back to Sherlock’s flat that night. He didn’t want to seem eager and there was always a moment at the start of relationships, or…whatever this was, when John felt terrified that using love too much at first would prove disastrous to the future, and god, he didn’t want to ruin this, whatever this was.  
   
Sherlock didn’t text, and John shouldn’t feel anxious about it at all, but he did. And he didn’t text Sherlock back either.  
   
He focused instead on the myriad of possibilities ahead of him: he had been able to paint again. He had had an idea and he had put it in the canvas. And it had _worked._ It had been true to his style, with that mix of surrealism and abstractionism mixed with post-impressionism, and it had carried the signature that made it unarguably _his._  
  
His work. His painting.  
   
What else could he paint about? The idea of painting London had simply come from the atmosphere of 221B, for it carried the essence of what London was, of what it represented: the mix of the old and the new, the classical and the modern, the scent of tea mixed with oils and turpentine, the light rain crashing against the window. Sherlock. Sherlock painting the human body. It felt like _home._  
  
And John couldn’t remember a moment when he had felt more at peace with himself and with his surroundings. Perhaps such moment had existed, but it had been blurred amidst the sweat, the heat and the blood of Afghanistan.  
   
He fell asleep thinking about which was the exact color in which London’s Victorian fog could be represented accurately _Coventry Gray? No, too dark, Abalone? Too…yellow-ish, Smoke Embers? Too obvious and not really accurate Pewter? Too blue Wrought Iron? Reminds me more of the steam of trains rather than the fog amidst the air, how about Steel Wool? Maybe, that’s…_  
  
*******  
   
John hadn’t texted. Which was fine. Certainly.  
   
More than fine, actually. Sherlock did not expect anything more.  
   
In all honesty, he didn’t even know what to expect, nor how to expect it, but he couldn’t help feeling slightly- disappointed at their lack of communication. It made him wonder. What if-?  
   
No. This would do him no good. He should focus instead on painting and on finishing that goddamned palm of the hand he had started four days ago and to which he couldn’t still find the correct shape, nor the correct position of the shadow.  
   
Hands were far much more complex than people thought they were. Drawing them was not only a challenge, for the fingers should hold a certain proportion between one another both in width and height, but because palms were filled with a thousand creases that defined not only the lines in which the hand could fold, but which were also associated with certain actions and movements. Hands spoke by themselves and expressed a thousand different things, a hand could express happiness or sadness or angst, and Sherlock wasn’t still quite certain what he wanted those hands to express, because at the moment one looked almost ecstatic whereas the other looked as if it was bordering on depression.  
   
An almost metaphorical representation of what Sherlock felt.  
   
If Sherlock believed in those things.  
   
Which he didn’t.  
   
He didn’t catch any sleep at night, focused on how to solve that conundrum. It was not possible that two hands so seemingly alike could at the same time say so many different things. He stared at them for hours, and erased them and drew them again and yet they still looked like they did on the very first try.  
   
And now they looked even worse, the fingers were not symmetrical and their weight and height was not in proportion with one another. This didn’t make sense, what was wrong with him?  
   
He heard the sound of the bell ringing but ignored it, heard Mrs. H’s voice and heard footsteps approaching, but he ignored them.  
   
Or not really, a part of him was scanning the exact weight of the person climbing up the stairs just by listening to the sound of the shoes crashing against the floor.  
   
And it wasn’t difficult to determine to who they belonged.  
   
He rolled his eyes.  
   
“Good afternoon, brother dear”.  
   
He didn’t reply. Although he did stop for a moment to consider what Mycroft had said, afternoon? If half an hour ago it was still midnight! How could it possibly be- _oh,_ he looked towards the window and yes, by the likes of it, it seemed as if it was the afternoon, around 1 or 2 p.m.  
   
Where the hell was John?  Was he even coming back at all?  
   
“How are you feeling today?”  
   
Well, he hadn’t texted him back, but as they said goodbye with a frankly breathtaking kiss, John had clearly said that he would come back, or did he?  
   
“I take it you’re not in a talkative mood, then”  
   
Perhaps his brain had been too focused on the intensity of the kiss that hadn’t even had time to register the exact words John had pronounced and that _was_ a serious issue, how was it even possible that John would block his senses and his focus just by his mere presence? This was getting serious.  
   
“Sherlock, I will not leave until you talk to me.”  
   
Oh right, Fattie was talking.  
   
“Hm?”, he said without taking his eyes off the paper.  
   
“What are you drawing?”  
   
“None of your business”  
   
“You see, it is. I need to be certain that you’re back on track once again, and that you won’t relapse. I need to be certain that I won’t have to find you lying unconscious on the carpet once again, Sherlock.”  
   
“Rest assured, brother mine, I won’t.”  
   
“I suspected so. Because you got yourself a new addiction, didn’t you? A soldier, no less.”  
   
Sherlock looked up immediately. Mycroft smiled. “I knew that would catch your attention.”  
   
“Don’t you have anything else to do than spy on me, Mycroft?”  
   
“John Watson. Ex-artist, ex-doctor, ex-soldier. Discharged. How did your paths cross, Sherlock? Seems improbable.”  
   
“But it happened.”  
   
“Indeed.” He looked at Sherlock up and down. “You do look better.”  
   
“As observant as always”, Sherlock said mockingly. “Now, if you excuse me I’ll go back to my drawing.”  
   
“You’re not following the main concepts of human anatomy, Sherlock. The tennar mass is missing.”  
   
 _Damnit!_  
  
It was.  
  
Sherlock looked up and stared at Mycroft angrily. “Bugger off!”, he replied.  
   
Mycroft smiled and stood up to leave. “At last you’ve decided to draw, huh? What made you change your mind? Was the lack of drugs… or the discovery of a new one?”, he raised an eyebrow.  
   
Sherlock didn’t reply.  
   
“In either case, it pleases me to know you have.”  
   
Sherlock ignored him, although he had to admit he was secretly surprised at Mycroft’s words.  
   
“I’ll see myself out. Give my best to John Watson.”  
   
“It’s- that’s, I…no”  
   
Mycroft didn’t reply, he simply sported his hideous smug smile and left. Of course he knew. Of course he bloody knew.  
   
Sherlock sighed and focused once again on the hands.  
   
*******  
   
John was greeted with the sound of a violin melody. He stopped at the entrance of the flat to see Sherlock’s back as he stared through the window while he played the violin. It was beautiful and incredibly intense. The melody, though John couldn’t recognize it, was generally upbeat, but it was tainted with small traces of melancholy.  
   
Sherlock was so enraptured in the composition that he hadn’t even realized John was there until he was finished. He put his violin back in his case and turned, and as soon as he saw John he jumped with a little (adorable) gasp.  
   
John smiled softly and cleared his throat. _God,_ Sherlock was beautiful, with the sun highlighting his hair and the reflection of his dark blue dressing gown imprinted in the window. He recorded that image in his mind and promised himself to reproduce it in a canvas, for this was the complete opposite of _Angst,_ this was, simply and utterly, _Peace._  
  
Sherlock smiled back. “John, hello.”  
   
John nodded and walked towards him. With every step he took he could see the uncertainty and the confusion drawing in Sherlock’s features and he _understood_ that Sherlock was feeling exactly what John was feeling the same indecision that John was feeling. _What are we?_ they asked each other with their eyes.  
   
So he decided to answer that question for both of them. And he kissed him.  
   
Sherlock gasped once again, a second before their lips met.  
   
John smiled into the kiss and pressed his lips harder against Sherlock’s, who could only respond in eager before opening his mouth and deepening their kiss. While John’s brain had collapsed for a moment, the first thought that crept into his mind as soon as it decided to wake up was that nothing, ever, had felt the way _this_ did.  
   
He was not good with words.  
   
But he was good with colors.  
   
And that was the problem: as they kissed, John could only see colors, a thousand different colors he could name but he didn’t want to, it was a myriad of cyans and greens and yellows and magentas and it was beautiful, as if a whole painting was drawing itself within his own brain.  
   
And he broke apart with a start.  
   
A whole painting was drawing itself within his own brain.  
   
Which meant… there was an _idea._  
  
Which meant…there was _inspiration._  
  
He stared at Sherlock, his eyes wide opened. Sherlock was staring back at him, his breathing rushed and an expression of disappointment falling over his face.  
   
John shook his head.  
   
Sherlock raised an eyebrow.  
   
“No, it’s not- it’s not you.”  
   
Sherlock frowned, looking even more confused.  
   
John smiled. “I have an idea”, he told Sherlock excitedly. “For a painting. It just came flying into my head, and it’s _beautiful,_ Sherlock.”  
   
Sherlock’s expression cleared a little bit. “What?”  
   
“I haven’t, this. I haven’t felt _this_ since- since before the war, Sherlock. Long before the war, Jesus, it’s been ages.”  
   
Sherlock cleared his throat. “Glad I could be of help”, he said with uncertainty.  
   
John blinked and turned to look at him as he mentally tried to save the image in his brain, with as many details as possible. “You were wondering what we were now.”  
   
“Hmm?”, Sherlock asked, confused.  
   
“You were wondering. So was I. But when I looked at you, playing the violin and looking like a painting by Vermeer, I realized that- I want this. I want us. I mean if you’re willing, if you’re willing to want me back.”  
   
Sherlock stood silent for a moment, simply staring at him. John felt his heart stopping in his chest. “Don’t be absurd, John”, he finally replied.  
   
John frowned. “Absurd?”, he asked. Had he gotten all of this wrong? Was Sherlock regretting what had happened between them? Didn’t he want this as much as he did? Sherlock had said that he didn’t care about feelings, for they were mere distractors, but John thought for a moment, for a single moment that perhaps, _perhaps-_  
  
“Vermeer only painted middle class people in their daily life. I think we can both agree I am _not_ middle class.”  
   
John laughed. “Of course you’re not, you posh git. Still you would have made a perfect Baroque composition, you know? The moment when you reached the climax of the song, that would have been the perfect moment of drama for Baroque artists. I could almost see the chiaroscuro drawing around you.”  
   
Sherlock smiled. “How was it like?”, he asked.  
   
“The light reflected on the right side of your back, lighting the color of you dressing gown. The bow held high and the pressure of your fingers over the strings. It was as if your body and the bow were forming a diagonal that contrasted with the shape of the window. It was brilliant.”  
   
Sherlock’s smile widened. “Was it?”  
   
“Yes, you are.”  
   
Sherlock pressed his lips against John’s. He broke a second later. “Now, tell me about your idea.”  
   
********  
   
Mike was already sitting in the restaurant by the time John arrived. Mike smiled at him and looked at him up and down before saying, “you look good, John.”  
   
John smiled widely. “I am. I feel good, yeah.”  
   
They chatted for a while, John told him that Sherlock was tutoring him on improving his drawing skills (of course, that was all he was going to say on the topic), if Mike noticed anything, he didn’t mention it (thankfully), but as soon as they finished talking about it, Mike simply said, “I’m glad you’re working on getting better, because I want to propose you something.”  
   
John frowned. “What?”, he asked.  
   
Mike scratched the back of his head. “Well, it’s more like an idea that popped into my mind out of nowhere and-”  
   
“Just- say it, Mike.”  
   
Mike bit his lip. “Right, so, my exhibition at the gallery was extended for two months more after the reception”, he said with a smile.  
   
John smiled, how could he ever forget about that exhibition? It had been there that he met Sherlock and was captivated by his intelligence. He had known immediately that there simply was no turning back. Sherlock was the kind of person that _absorbed_ you with their mere existence. And John couldn’t refuse, from the very first moment he _knew_ that it was right.  
   
But maybe he should be focusing on his conversation with Mike instead of thinking about Sherlock.  
   
Right.  
   
John smiled and cleared his throat. “I am very proud of you.”  
   
Mike nodded with a smile. “Well, the gallery is doing an open call for young artists to show their work and get a place on the next exhibition.”  
   
 _No._  
  
“I’m not young”, John replied immediately, as some kind of defense mechanism.  
   
Mike rolled his eyes, “would you let me finish? Anyway, I was talking to Kevin, the manager of the Gallery and I told him I knew the perfect artist for the exhibition, and I mentioned your name, and brought up that one of your painting was on the Tate Modern, and he seemed quite impressed. He wants to see your work.”  
   
John shook his head. No. “No.”  
   
“John, you don’t understand. You’re perfect for this exhibition. It’s as if it was made for you.”  
   
John dragged a deep breath. He could feel his hand trembling. “What's it about?”, he asked, his voice shaky.  
   
“War and violence”, Mike replied. “If I’m not mistaken, the title is: expressing the inexpressible: war and violence in the eyes of art.”  
   
John squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t”, he replied.  
   
And he couldn’t. Expressing what the war had done to him, putting into images the smell of death and loss, and trying to find some kind of sense within it, he couldn’t do that, he wasn’t strong enough.  
   
“John, you are a brilliant artist, and you’ve seen the horrors of war by yourself. This is the perfect opportunity to resume your career, to be the John Watson you used to be.”  
   
“I can’t be that John Watson anymore, Mike”, John replied, getting angry.  
   
“You could try.”  
   
“Maybe I don’t want to be that John Watson anymore.”  
   
“Maybe you don’t, but you’re desperate to paint again, it’s your one true passion, John.”  
   
John felt his eyes welling up with tears. Mike didn’t understand.  
   
He stood up and aimed to leave.  
   
“Think about it”, Mike said, looking anything but surprised, perhaps he’d foreseen this outcome. “Just- think about it. You have two months to present your portfolio.”  
   
John sighed. “I can’t, Mike”, he replied before leaving the restaurant.  
   
He felt lost and could feel the PTSD dragging him back in. He breathed deeply, as he identified the first symptoms of a panic attack approaching. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands and walked towards the only place he knew, the only place he could think of, the only place his mudded brain could remember: 221B Baker Street.  
   
He barely made it to the door before he collapsed.


	14. Chapter 14

  
“John!”, Sherlock exclaimed as he descended the stairs.  
   
John was sitting against the door, with his knees pressed against his chest, his hands covering his face, as he desperately tried to bring air back to his lungs because _he couldn’t breathe,_ he just couldn’t because each breath he took was muddled with sand and smelled like desert and he simply couldn’t.  
   
His shoulder was aching. It all hurt too much.  
   
“John, what happened?”, Sherlock asked while he crouched and examined John carefully, making sure that he didn’t have any injuries.  
   
_Not physical ones,_ John thought, _but I’m mentally broken._  
  
John couldn’t bring himself to talk. His mind was far, far away, 3.610 miles apart, in Afghanistan.  
   
_The rumble of the bullets reverberated over and over again, it was the kind of noise that left the ears numb, and that was the least of their problems. The problem was that they were trying to shoot back, but they were falling, one by one. His whole troop, and they’d been outnumbered. John kept shooting and shooting without turning back, without stopping for a single second. He had to act, and act fast. Not for himself, his life wasn’t worthy anymore, he was no one, but for the lives of those who had a family, parents and children and a partner to come back to. And he felt it. Rippling every single fiber of skin and muscle on the way. He had been shot. He felt an inexplicable pain spreading through his arm, and then through his body. He fell, overcome by the intense feeling that threatened to drag him and drive him unconscious, and he could easily let go. For a single second, he simply thought that nobody would miss him so why even bother? He fell and felt the sand crashing against his body, and he tasted the grains in his mouth, and the blood coming from his shoulder. The sound of the fire and the smell, the stench of death and tragedy and it was all too much. He fell unconscious._  
  
“JOHN!”  
   
_A hand in his -good- shoulder, holding him tight, bringing him back to life. Baker Street and tea and no taste of sand in his mouth, no taste of blood. He dragged a deep breath and felt his lungs responding in earnest. A hand took his and slowly, slowly, moved it away from his face._  
  
“Open your eyes, John.”  
   
_No because if I do I’ll only see death. I’ll only see black._  
  
“John.”  
   
He opened them reluctantly and found _blue, no you idiot, cerulean, electric blue, mint green, turquoise, verdigris, teal, azure, aqua_ staring at him.  
   
He blinked.  
   
The eyes smiled despite the frown of his eyebrows. “Good. Breathe with me. In and out. In and out.”  
   
John followed Sherlock’s voice.  
   
Sherlock.  
   
“Sherlock”, he whispered.  
   
“It’s fine, I’m here. I’m here with you, John. You’re in London, not in Afghanistan. London. Baker Street. Here. With me”, a thumb caressed the back of his hand.  
   
John leaned his head against the door and simply breathed, trying to calm down his rushing heart. Sherlock sat next to him, still holding his hand.  
   
“Feeling better?”, Sherlock asked after a while.  
   
John nodded slowly. Actually, he wasn’t. He had had panic attacks before, as soon as he’d come back from the war, but he hadn’t had one since Sherlock arrived to his life, and certainly none of them had been as intense as this one. He was not better, he was worried.  
   
“Can you stand up?”, Sherlock asked as he stood up and held out a hand for John to take.  
   
John took it and Sherlock helped him up. His legs were strong enough to hold his weight, but his mind wasn’t strong enough to avoid the limping and so he found himself with a limp worse than just after he’d been discharged.  
   
He leaned his weight against Sherlock, who simply put an arm around his shoulders. “Come on”, he whispered in John’s ear as they made their way to 221B, “I’ll make you some tea”.   
   
******  
   
John drank the tea as if it had been the first cuppa he’d ever had in his life. He focused his full attention on it, on the taste and the steam and the smell and the color, _brown zero with an infusion of earl grey._ Eventually, his breathing went back to normal.  
   
Sherlock sat in front of him. He wasn’t looking at him, he simply stared at the tea. He didn’t ask any questions, he didn’t pry for any kind of information. It was as if he knew exactly how to deal with those situations, as if he’d lived them himself. John wanted to ask him, but he knew it wasn’t the place nor the moment.  
   
John closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re probably wondering what happened there-”, he broke the silence, slightly startled at how normal and cool his voice sounded when he felt anything but.  
   
Sherlock shook his head. “Not now, John. I don’t want to know now.”  
   
John’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”  
   
“When you feel strong enough to talk about it, we’ll talk about it. If you want.”  
   
John nodded and remained silent. Sherlock finished his cuppa in silence and stood up, fetched his violin and started playing, as he stared through the window.  
   
And John wondered how it was possible that a couple of musical notes were capable of anchoring him to the present, of dragging him back from the dark and giving him his life back.  
   
The last remnants of the panic attack faded.  
   
He stood up and walked towards Sherlock, and waited patiently, waited for the allegro and the crescendo and the grand finale, and waited until he could properly wrap his arms around him, because that was the only thing he could think about.  
   
And as soon as Sherlock had finished he did, and Sherlock gasped in surprise before relaxing comfortably into John’s arms. John breathed happily against Sherlock’s neck. “Thank you”, he whispered.  
   
Sherlock nodded as he closed his eyes. He turned and kissed John, John kissed him back eagerly, desperately seeking for the magic and the vivacity and the color of Sherlock’s lips.  
   
Life. Light. Sherlock. Baker Street.  
   
Their kiss deepened, John held onto any scrape of skin he could take, feeling the softness and the warmth of it. He was getting used to Sherlock’s vivacity too fast, and that could end up being counterproductive, terribly counterproductive.  
   
And perfect.  
   
Sherlock moaned against his lips, “John”, he whispered.  
   
“Yes”, John replied.  
   
Sherlock’s hands caressed John’s arms, and then touched his chest, stopping over his heart, feeling the rapid heartbeats, marveling at the anatomy, the composition and the structure of John’s body. John’s perfect body.  
   
And a beating heart in between, keeping them in the present, reminding them of where they were, and of the unbearable yet absolutely necessary thought that they were _alive._  
   
*******  
   
“I met with Mike”, John said lowly as they laid in the couch. Sherlock’s head was on top of John’s, and somehow not having to look at his eyes made it all much easier.  
   
Sherlock hmed. “Yes, I knew that much”, he said, sounding slightly exasperated and John loved that Sherlock wouldn’t sugarcoat him, wouldn’t treat him any differently, wouldn’t change his whole demeanor after seeing John at his most vulnerable.  
   
He almost smiled. Almost. “He proposed I should participate in a gallery.”  
   
“That’s not bad”, Sherlock replied.  
   
John swallowed. “The gallery is about the war.”  
   
Sherlock remained silent for a moment. “Oh”, he said.  
   
“Yes. About violence in art. How could he ask me that? How could he?”, John said, feeling his anger rising.  
   
Sherlock didn’t say a word.  
   
“He said he’d already told the gallery’s curator about my work, and that he wanted to see it, as if I had something to show him”, he laughed a humorless laugh, “as if I had a single shit to show him, he knows I haven’t painted anything in ages!”  
   
“You painted an eye, and London.”  
   
“Yes but they don’t count.”  
   
“Why?”  
   
“Because they’re not about the war.”  
   
“They could be.”  
   
John looked up and met Sherlock’s eyes. “They really, really could not. They’re too filled with peace, too colorful, too alive.” _Too filled with you,_ he didn’t say.  
   
Sherlock bit his lip. “Paint something about the war, then.”  
   
John shook his head. “You can’t ask me that.”  
   
“Why not?”  
   
“Because-”, _because I can’t, there are too many demons around me, torturing me, hurting me, playing with my mind, and I can’t bring them back, they barely scratched the surface and left me with a panic attack, I can’t face them. They terrify me. I’ve buried them, after all this time, I finally managed to bury them and you ask me to unearth them? Don’t, please don’t. I can’t put it into words. Don’t make me do it._  
  
He didn’t say anything else.  
   
“You should try”, Sherlock said, filling the silence.  
   
“I can’t”, John whispered.  
   
“Yes, you can. You can do anything, John”, Sherlock replied.  
   
_Not this,_ he didn’t say.  
   
“It could be your comeback, John.”  
   
There is no comeback for him. He knew it. It was not meant to happen. He lost it, he lost it all. Sherlock could bring the spark back into his life, his illusions and hopes and ideas and inspiration, but he certainly could not bring his talent back. Society had too many expectations set on him, and after the painting that made it to the Tate came…nothing. Nothing at all. It’s been ten years and still…nothing. Death and pain and loss but no new paintings. He was ethereal, instantaneous, removable, disposable, forgettable. And it hurts him and it kills him to think about it. When he was young he used to think it’d be nice if humanity would remember him, or if at least one decent human being would remember his legacy, but now he knows he’s condemned to be forgotten, to die, to rot in the past, in the shining of greater times, of the time that never was. We all live and we all die. It was unbearable to think that he’d die in everyone’s memories as well.  
   
Ethereal, instantaneous, removable, disposable, forgettable…a failure.  
   
John sat up. “What about your comeback? Are you ever planning on actually doing something?”, he said harshly.  
   
Sherlock looked at him with an expressionless face.  
   
“I’m sorry”, John replied.  
   
Sherlock stood up and walked over to his room.  
   
John covered his face with his hands. He couldn’t do this, couldn’t ruin the only highlight of his life, couldn’t drive Sherlock away, for he couldn’t imagine a life without Sherlock on it.  
   
And that thought terrified him.  
   
He was about to stand up and go to apologize when Sherlock came back carrying turpentine and the oils he’d given John days ago. “Stand up”, was all Sherlock said.  
   
John did, slightly confused.  
   
Sherlock gave him a brush.  
   
John took it.  
   
“Tell me about Afghanistan.”  
   
John shook his head.  
   
“Fine, then tell me about Afghanistan _in the canvas_ ” _,_ he emphasized.  
   
John’s eyes widened. “No.”  
   
“John…”  
   
John looked down and didn’t dare look at Sherlock.  
   
“John-”  
   
John didn’t look up.  
   
“John, trust me.”  
   
And somehow that gave John enough courage. Sherlock was staring at him expectantly, and John found it he simply couldn’t not do it, he trusted Sherlock with his everything, Sherlock had cured him, had saved him from his stagnation, had brought the colors back.  
   
“I won’t ask you to draw anything, I just want you to show me which colors come to your mind when you think of Afghanistan. Paint them.”  
   
John dragged a deep breath, grabbed the turpentine and the palette Sherlock had offered him and closed his eyes. He could do this, he could.  
  
_Burnt ember._  
   
_Helicopters rummaging through the sky, bringing more and more victims in, victims who are convinced they’re fighting for their country when they’re only bringing death and loss in the name of a flag, in the supposed name of liberty._  
  
_Gray dignity._  
  
_The illusion of honor. What honor do you have left when you’re discharged, when you’re useless and mentally ill?_  
  
_Summer fog._  
  
_Heat. Heat everywhere._  
  
_Titanium Gray._  
  
_Bullets. Death._  
  
_Storm._  
  
He came back from his stupor. He’d painted a whole palette of grays in the palette. It was the only color he could see war in. There was nothing else, no depth, no profundity, no complexity. Simply gray.  
   
Sherlock was looking at the canvas fixedly. He nodded. “What do you see there?”, he asked.  
   
“Pain”, John replied.  
   
Sherlock shook his head. “I can’t see it.”  
   
John pointed at the ‘painting’, “yes, you see, it’s there, and there and there”, he said pointing at different spots in the canvas. “It’s all over the place: destruction, loss, desolation, isolation, the sound of bombs and the bullets. It’s there. Pain is everywhere.”  
   
Sherlock shrugged. “I see nothing but too many colors that look very similar, mixed together in horizontal stripes”.  
   
“That’s Afghanistan”, John replied. “That’s what we turned it into. With every step we took, with every bullet we shot, we progressively took the color out of it, we killed its vibrancy, we left it colorless. We killed it.”  
   
Sherlock finally turned to look at John, his expression unreadable. “Congratulations”, he replied, “you have your first painting to be featured at the gallery”.  
   
John blinked. He blinked again. And again.  
   
Sherlock was wrong. Sherlock was completely wrong. He turned and looked at the so-called-painting and hated it and despised it and thought it was the most meaningless and stupid thing he’d ever seen. He wanted to destroy it. It was the worst thing he’d ever done.  
   
This couldn’t encompass what he felt, this wasn’t even close, this was just a stupid reduction of the whole situation, a poor attempt to express the inexpressible.  
   
He clenched his jaw. He had trusted Sherlock and he’d gone and done the same thing Mike had done. He felt anger spreading all through his body.  
   
He looked at Sherlock, “What do you know about it?”, he said loudly, “you didn’t live it, you weren’t there! You didn’t see! You didn’t lose!”  
   
Sherlock blinked. He stood silent for a moment before replying, “but I understood it when I saw it, John. This painting says enough”.  
   
John shook his head. Sherlock was so, so _wrong._ Stupidly wrong, thinking he grasped it all just by looking at a stupid painting that is just a bunch of stripes in pretty much the same stupid and boring and meaningless color. “Sod this”, he said with animosity. “Sod this”.  
   
He threw the brush that he was still holding in his hand and walked away, closing the door behind him.  
   
Sherlock stood in the middle of the room, staring at the door.  
   
John was gone.  
   
Why did John leave? Why was he so offended at what Sherlock did? He was trying to _help_ him, for God’s sake!, he thought he was doing the right thing, wasn’t that what he was supposed to do? He wanted to help John, to save him, to rescue him from himself and the memories that haunted him.  
   
Because he understood, because he’d been there, because he’d lost and he’d suffered and felt acute pain and had been near to death and had wanted to go near to death many other times after that and had almost succeeded at doing it.  
   
And then John appeared and saved him.  
   
And brought him back to life.  
   
And now John had walked away.  
   
He couldn’t understand, he needed answers and he needed John to give them to him.  
   
He followed him out of the door but John was nowhere to be seen anymore. For how long had Sherlock stood in the middle of the room, lost in thought?  
   
He had tried so hard to be good for him, to help him, to save him, to do the same John had done for him, but he had completely failed at it.  
   
As with almost everything else in his life.  
   
He came back to his flat and closed the door behind him, leaning against it and closing his eyes. He couldn’t lose John, not after all the things they’d shared already, he couldn’t let him go.  
   
He had to save him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things will get so much better soon, I promise <3 thank you so much for reading, you all :3


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for taking so long to update, although you're probably used to that :( this chapter is my redemption though, so enjoy! :3 thank you so much for reading and supporting this little one! x

There was a romanticized notion of being an artist. The idea of a big studio filled with colors and paintings scattered everywhere and the constant smell of turpentine and oils and the sound of the brush on the canvas, well, that idea did not exist.  
   
Sherlock could vow to that.  
   
And standing in a narrow hallway, with dim light and dark walls, Sherlock couldn't help but think no one would ever relate this to an artist.  
   
Lest of all, to John Watson.  
   
It looked like such an empty place to live. There was nothing. Nothing that could bring inspiration, no colors, no light, only shadows, only dark. Try as he might, Sherlock found nothing in there that could bring John Watson back to life.  
   
It was an old building in London's suburbs. It was boring. It was not the place he would ever imagine John Watson living in.  
   
Well, John had never invited him in anyway. After their outburst, two days ago, he had _forced —_ more like _bribed—_ Mycroft to tell him where John lived, and his brother told him as he sported a smirk and a knowing look which Sherlock ignored. He had no time for that, he had to talk to John.  
   
He read the address three times as he stood in front of the building, just trying to make sure that this _was_ where John lived. Although one couldn't compare this kind of life to that of a professional and widely recognized and acclaimed artist, Sherlock could compare it to the environment of those bohemian writers of the 19th century, as if they were in one of Poe's tales, or trapped in the midst of Baudelaire's poems.  
   
He tapped the door on apartment 21. There was silence on the other end. Sherlock felt his heart in his throat. What if John was gone for good? He'd spent those two days thinking about what he'd say to John once they met again, he didn't stop for a moment to consider if John would be there to talk to him ever again.  
   
The door opened, just a tiny bit.  
   
And John Watson's face was enough to brighten the whole hallway. A chiaroscuro in all its magnitude.  
   
Actually, upon closer inspection on John Watson's face, Sherlock saw a chiaroscuro in its own. He saw the conflicting emotions coming to life, a kind of relief, a kind of deep feeling drawn in his expression, _light,_ but anger and a raw pain in between, _dark._  
  
He wanted to reach and touch and turn the dark into light.  
   
But he didn't know if he was entitled to anymore.  
   
John blinked.  
   
Sherlock blinked too.  
   
"What are you doing here?", John whispered, his eyes widened.  
   
Sherlock cleared his throat. "I want to talk to you."  
   
John raised an eyebrow.  
   
"Please", Sherlock said.  
   
John nodded and opened the door wider, allowing Sherlock in. Sherlock stepped inside and took a quick look around.  
   
Small, dim, lacking of personality, but even worse, lacking of _color._ If someone were to ask Sherlock how he would have imagined  John's quarters to look like, he would have replied that they could be messy and a bit disheveled, but they would be _colorful,_ brought to life by John's mere presence, but also by John's passion for colors. Standing there, not even John's presence was enough to bring light to this place. It had nothing of John's imprint on it. John was too magical, too big, too much for this boring place.  
   
John must have noticed with that artistic sixth sense of his, because as he sat on the couch he said, "try living on an army pension".  
   
Sherlock's attention snapped back to John. His left hand was trembling, but other than that, he didn't look much different. If someone who didn't know John were to look at him at that moment, they wouldn't notice anything odd about him.  
   
But Sherlock could affirm he knew John, at least a bit, and he could tell John was anxious, if his hand was anything to go by.  
   
A small pad stood over the table, with a pencil hovering next to it. A drawing Sherlock couldn't quite manage to see drawn in silhouettes. John had been drawing before Sherlock came.  
   
Sherlock sat on the chair in front of the sofa and stared at John, who simply cleared his throat and said... "well?"  
   
Sherlock blinked and sat up straight.  
   
John raised an eyebrow amusingly. Apparently he was lavishing on Sherlock's confusion at John's apartment.  
"I came here to-erm apologize."  
   
"Apologize?", John asked.  
   
"Yes. I am sorry, John", _I can't lose you I can't hurt you you've trusted in me I simply can't hurt you and then let you go I can't let you go but if you want me to please don't I'm sorry._ "I shouldn't have pressured you into doing something you clearly weren't prepared to do. I shouldn't have pushed you to do it. It was your choice, it was your experience and it's your art, and you choose in which manner to express it and what to create it about. My apologies."  
   
John looked at him silently. As soon as Sherlock was finished, he sat up straight and shook his head. "It wasn't- it just, you, erm-"  
   
"For someone so good at painting, you certainly lack eloquence", Sherlock couldn't help but reply.  
   
John smiled slightly, feigning seriousness. "I meant to say that you were simply trying to help and I shouldn't have done what I did. I- regretted it as soon as I walked through the door and- that."  
   
Sherlock bit his lip and nodded. "You have nothing to be sorry for. It's fine."  
   
John's eyes brightened before he added. "Did you just call me a good painter?", he raised an eyebrow and smirked.  
   
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Clearly. By the Tate Modern's standards, which aren't very high."  
   
John grabbed a pillow and threw it at him. It smacked on Sherlock's face.  
   
"Well, at least I'm judged by a _museum's_ standards", he hit back.  
   
Sherlock couldn't help but laugh. "I grant you that much", he said, throwing the pillow back to John.  
   
John stood up as he grabbed the pillow and walked towards Sherlock's chair. He stopped in front of him and started hitting him with the pillow. Sherlock grabbed John by the wrists and pulled him towards him, their faces mere inches from one another. John stared deeply into his eyes.  
   
"Are we alright?", Sherlock couldn't help but ask softly, sounding incredibly small. John smiled back at him and leaned even closer, placing a tiny butterfly kiss on Sherlock's nose. Sherlock's eyes closed.  
   
"Yes", John replied. He drew back, however and looked at Sherlock seriously. "As long as you don't push me into doing that again."  
   
Sherlock nodded. There were so many things he wanted to say, because he knew that in the long run this wasn't helping John overcome his trauma and he was also missing a huge chance, but he didn't dare say it, because he knew it simply wouldn't end well. It wouldn't do.  
   
 _As he sat through endless hours of classes, Sherlock drew human figures. He was thirteen years old and yet he could recall clearly how drawing became his only subterfuge, the only place that made him feel at ease, he cure for boredom and loneliness._  
  
 _One particular day, during English class, Sherlock made a discovery: a triangle was the best guideline to draw lips. It was simple: the lowest point of the bow would have to be placed just below the sharpest angle of the triangle, where as the base was perfect to draw the lower lip. That much was easy. The trickiest part, though, was also his favorite: locating the source of the light that caught in the lips._  
  
 _Lips were a very particular thing to admire:  light played with its shape, and so did shadows. If one wanted to become an expert in chiaroscuros, lips had to be a starting point. The tiny lines among the lips had their own set of shadows as well, and so that idea that had started during a boring English class, in the middle of a day of fall, took Sherlock until winter do finally develop. After practicing over and over, time after time, after endless failed attempts, he made it: his lips looked realistic enough. One of the most captivating things about the drawing (and Sherlock would come to realize later, one of the things he loved the most about painting), was that the correct use of shadows gave a realistic texture to the figure, in a way that you had the illusion you could reach out and feel the soft, dry, velvety texture of the lips. It was a feeling Sherlock loved._  
  
He reached out and traced the pattern of John's lips slowly and fixedly. Somehow, he could see the triangle drawing itself, guiding him. The light came from the wall to the left and it casted a magnificent shadow over the right side of John's lips. He reached down and felt the texture of it. Had he drawn it, he knew that no shadows and no lights would be enough to express what it felt like to touch John's lips. It felt as if his fingers tingled, as if tiny spirals drew themselves in the place where John and Sherlock's skin connected. John stared at Sherlock, perplexed. Perhaps he could see the utter and complete devotion behind Sherlock's a-thousand-tones-of-blue eyes.  
   
Slowly, slowly, John opened his mouth, just a little bit. His tongue found Sherlock's finger a heartbeat later, and Sherlock's eyes drew closed immediately, as he basked into the absorbing sensation.  
   
This...drawing it was not enough to describe it.  
   
John kissed Sherlock's finger delicately, with almost the same devotion Sherlock had examined the wrinkles in his lips. It was a moment charged with passion, with innuendo, but with another thing Sherlock couldn't put a name to, because he had never lived it before.  
   
He gasped as John's lips closed around his index finger once again, but he opened his eyes because he had to look at this, he had too take into the curves, the shapes, the shadows.  
   
However, his senses had gone numb.  
   
John opened his eyes and looked at Sherlock, a dark shadow drawing itself over his pupils. Sherlock moved his finger out immediately and pushed himself towards John, finding his lips midway.  
   
Sherlock remembered that day John walked him through the Tate Modern and had taken him to that Van Gogh painting. As Sherlock stared at the paint-coated spirals, he had mixed feelings: on one hand, he wanted to feel aversion to such a low form of expression, on the other he was absolutely marveled by the texture the spirals exuded. Even though there was a very thick layer of glass between him and the painting, his fingers had the sensation that they were tracing the contour of those spirals, could absorb the color and could even bring him back to that single second in which Van Gogh had traced them with a brush.  
   
Such was the impact of texture.  
   
Now, as his lips joined John's, Sherlock felt as if the could trace the shape of his lips, as if he could absorb the color and even mingle with every single cell of John's, as if he'd met John for a thousand small eternities.  
   
Their mouths opened. John placed a hand on the back of his neck, the other tangling in his curls and pulling slightly. And Sherlock _needed_ him.  
   
He felt as one of John's legs came to rest in between his, prying them apart and grazing the skin there. He gasped and pulled John towards him, until John was kneeled over the chair.  
   
As they kissed, John's hand roamed down, slowly, oh so slowly, perhaps too slow, but Sherlock didn't care, he wanted to explore every inch, every trace, every pattern and every texture of John's mouth.  
   
The hand finally stopped over Sherlock's zipper, hesitantly. Sherlock broke the kiss to look at John. "Please", he asked.  
   
John nodded and kissed him again, as if it was physically impossible to stay away from him, it felt as if any particle of distance was a universe and a thousand lightyears apart.  
Sherlock's still conscious side of his brain wondered for a second why on earth had those concepts stayed inside his mind palace but he didn't dwell on it too much because John pulled the zipper down.  
   
As soon as he'd opened it, John broke the kiss and stared at Sherlock hungrily, the darkness eclipsing the light of his pupils. Sherlock nodded once again and John got on his knees.  
   
Sherlock's legs were trembling. This was _real,_ this was happening.  
   
He stood up and pulled his trousers and pants down. John caressed the inside of Sherlock's thighs and moved up, slowly. Sherlock shuddered. His hands found his cock and grabbed it softly, but firmly.  
   
A second later, Sherlock's eyes roamed down and found John's as John encircled his cock with his mouth.  
   
It was almost too much.  
   
The sensations were overwhelming, Sherlock felt as if he would collapse at any moment. John's mouth drew patterns over Sherlock's cock, and it felt fantastic. His hands moved at the base, Sherlock's trembling hand reached over and pulled at John's hair, warningly, for Sherlock felt as if he could black out at any second.  
   
And for once, he willingly embraced the darkness.  
   
He came. John didn't move.  
   
Sherlock's senses slowly came back to him, and all he could do was to pull John towards him, merge with him, not allow a single particle (or a whole universe) to stand in their way. He kissed John and could taste himself on John's lips and the thought was too absorbing, too enrapturing. He felt John moving against him, desperately seeking friction, and he helped him through. John came with a muffled groan and collapsed against Sherlock's chest, both of them panting and sweating and it was messy and Sherlock loved every single second of it.  
   
He felt incredibly tired, two days of not sleeping and overthinking finally taking over him. John's breathing evened out eventually. Just as he felt sleep dragging him in, he felt John's hot air through the fabric of his shirt. A second later, his voice filled the room.  
   
"Truth is", John said against his chest, "I desperately want to be in this gallery. But I know I'll never be good enough. It will never say enough. I want you to help me. But on my own time, please", he spoke softly, as if the darkness and the wetness and the warmth of the night had allowed his deepest secrets to filter through.  
   
A moment later, he raised his head. "Sherlock, will you help me?", he asked.  
   
Sherlock nodded. "Always."  
   
John leaned his head against his chest and sleep claimed them both.  
   
*******  
   
They didn't talk about it the next day. John acted as if he hadn't said anything the night before.  
   
They went to Baker Street and spent the day together. John sketched a bit here and there, Sherlock thought a lot about the textures, the patterns, the lights and the shadows of the human body, but they didn't paint anything.  
   
Because John had said it, it would be in his own time.  
   
He had also said he wanted to be in the gallery, which was something Sherlock hadn't expected to hear. He knew that John was talented enough to deserve his place at the exhibition, actually, he was talented enough and had been haunted enough by the war that his sole experience could fill up an entire gallery.  
   
That night, as soon as they finished eating, John put the plate away, leaned against the couch and started talking. "The first place I was sent to was Kabul", he started.  
   
Sherlock's eyes widened but he didn't interrupt him. He sat next through him as John told him, one by one, each and every single thing he'd lived in Afghanistan. His face was expressionless, as if he was in some kind of trance. His voice never wavered. He never stopped to think, as if it was a tale he'd known by heart since he was a kid. Sherlock ached to reach out and take his hand, but he stood still, knowing quite well that John didn't want that at the moment.  
   
And so John talked and talked. He talked about the friends he'd lost, the people he'd saved, the people who'd saved him, the bombings, the attacks, the counterattacks, an even the color of sand.  
   
He stopped and touched his shoulder.  
   
And just like that, he fell silent.  
   
Sherlock didn't get to hear about that particular moment, about that single second in which a thousand universes collided and a bullet graced John's shoulder and he lost everything he thought he'd wanted.  
   
And John simply stood up and walked towards their -ahem, Sherlock's- room and laid on the bed.  
   
Sherlock stood up and grabbed the violin, and started playing without even paying attention to what he was playing. His mind was focused on retaining every single detail of what John had told him and storing it carefully on his mind palace.  
   
A warm feeling spread through his body. John had opened every single door to him, had lifted the barriers, had let him in. Just him.  
   
He smiled against the violin and promised himself that he would do anything he could to save John Watson, just as John Watson had saved him.  
   
About an hour later, he put his violin down and went to the bed. John was sleeping soundly, and Sherlock laid down softly on the other side of the bed.  
   
A moment later, an arm wrapped around him and he felt the energy and the warmth radiating from his back. And he leaned against that source of energy, that source of light.  
   
And he slept. They both did.  
 


End file.
